


Crying Wolf

by LindaO



Series: Chaos AU [11]
Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: AU, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Internet Trolls, Season 2, before God Mode
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-09
Updated: 2014-02-09
Packaged: 2018-01-11 16:42:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 51,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1175398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LindaO/pseuds/LindaO
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finch and Reese try to save a thoroughly unlikable young man who may have cried wolf once too often, while the Machine summons its own pack of Bad Wolves – elite human hackers – to help protect the city from an imminent threat. </p>
<p>"Better than any of us. But not better than all of us."</p>
<p>Next in the Chaos AU, after "Asena".</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> With many thanks to all the people on the Person of Interest Discussion Forum who helped me sort out issues of trolls, morality, and poison!

“I am the Bad Wolf. I create myself. I take the words … I scatter them in time and space. A message, to lead myself here. I want you safe …”

Russell T. Davies, Doctor Who

 ***

POLICE DISPATCH TO ANY NYPD SUPERVISOR. SUPERVISOR RESPONSE REQUIRED AT OFFICER-INVOLVED VEHICULAR ACCIDENT. SINGLE VEHICLE INCIDENT. OFFICER REPORTS FATALITY AT SCENE. AMBULANCE AND FIRE-RESCUE HAVE BEEN DISPATCHED. ADDRESS AND CROSS STREET TO FOLLOW. REPEAT, SUPERVISOR RESPONSE REQUIRED AT OFFICER-INVOLVED VEHICULAR ACCIDENT. 

 ***

John Reese positioned the narrow wedge in the shallow crack carefully, then reached back to pick up the sledge. He paused, letting the hammer swing at his side. There was a time when he would have thought of breaking rock as a punishment. In fact, there had been a time, way back in boot camp, when breaking rocks _had_ been a punishment. But here and now, it was just productive recreation.

He swung the hammer in a wide arc over his shoulder. It connected squarely with the wedge, and the slab of rock split cleanly.

Satisfied, Reese put down the hammer and slid the bigger piece of the rock into position. It sank easily into the fine gravel bed. The irregular shape fit against the existing pieces exactly as he’d planned it. He stepped on it, grinding it down to courser layer of stone beneath the fine top. Then he dropped a level onto it.

The bubble floated exactly in the center of the level.

Reese sighed. He grabbed the pickax and pried the side of the slab up again.

“It looked level to me,” a boy said.

John looked up. A curly-haired boy was standing there. He was wearing an over-sized hockey jersey. Bruins. Reese knew who he was. The boy didn’t know him. “That’s the problem,” he answered.  “Come and hold this.”

The boy moved quickly around the back of the slab. It was probably too heavy for him to lift on his own, but it was easy enough for him to hold it on its edge. Reese grabbed the spade and smoothed the base quickly toward the building.

“You don’t want it level,” the boy said. “You want it to drain away from the building.”

“Right.”

“That’s smart.”

John grinned crookedly. “Okay. Let it drop.”

The boy released the slab. It fell heavily, stirring up a little dust. Reese dropped the level again. It was slanted just enough away from the building. “Good,” he pronounced. He gestured to the slab. “Jump on it.”

The kid stomped happily.

Reese pulled off his work gloves, picked up the water bottle and drained the last few swallows. He looked around. The patio was two-thirds laid. The broken sandstone, in large irregular pieces, looked terrific. Six more pieces, he guessed, and it would be ready for the edging.

He felt the low burn of exertion in his biceps and his shoulders. It was cool outside – high fifties, unexpectedly mild for March in New York -- but he was sweating in his shirtsleeves. It was a good feeling.

He glanced up at the windows on the third floor. They were iridescent, coated; he couldn’t tell if Christine was watching. She probably wasn’t. That was too bad. Not that he was showing off for her, exactly.  

He glanced out over the yard. The break in the winter weather was in its second week, and he’d gotten a lot done. The patio was nearly finished. The fence posts were in, set in concrete. He’d had the fence panels delivered, and they were propped against the side of the building. He could put up the fence whenever he was ready, but if it snowed again they’d be fine where they were. He’d supervised the replacement of the basement door with a heavy-duty steel one; it was now as secure as the rest of the building. He’d constructed a little closet at the base of the steps inside for tools. When the patio was done, he’d start on the lawn. He probably needed to rent a rototiller, he thought. The lot was nothing but packed clay and weeds. Till it up good, rake it out, plant some grass. Straw to keep the birds from eating the seeds. But that would need to wait until the weather got warm for good …

“Good?” the boy asked.

John turned and looked. “Yeah, that’s good.” He stuck his hand out. “I’m John.”

“Lee,” the boy returned. He shook his hand. “You a friend of Scotty’s?”

“Yep.”

“We’re taking her to the hockey game.”

John nodded. “I heard.”

“She’s coming to my school tomorrow to have lunch with me.”

“That sounds like fun,” Reese allowed.

Lionel Fusco came around the corner of the building. He looked mildly concerned. “Hey, Lee, where’d you run off to?” He was wearing a hockey jersey, too. He paused when he saw Reese; his eyes got just a little bigger, his mouth smaller with disapproval. He glanced at his son, then back at the ex-op. “Hey, John,” he said uneasily.

“Lionel,” Reese returned calmly.

“He’s making a patio,” Lee said.

“I can see that.” Fusco surveyed the area. “Looks good. Concrete would have been simpler, though.”

John shrugged. “I needed a good work-out.”

Fusco quirked an eyebrow up. “Looks like you’re getting’ it.” He looked around the yard. “It’s going to be real nice.”

“Thanks, Lionel.”

“Can I go up and see Scotty?” Lee asked.

“Miss Scotty,” Fusco corrected. “Yeah, go ahead.”

The boy walked carefully across the finished part of the patio to the back door. Then he looked back. “It’s nice to meet you, sir.”

“You too, Lee.”

The boy went inside.

Reese stomped on the newest slab one more time. “Kid’s got nice manners, Lionel. Must get that from his mother.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Fusco looked to be sure the door was closed, then gestured to the patio. “This your excuse to hang around?”

“Partly,” Reese admitted. He glanced toward the third floor again. “But I really haven’t needed one.”

“Huh.” He looked around the yard. “You gonna try to plant grass?”

“I was going to till the yard up first. Wait for the weather.”

“Yeah. Make sure you get a shade variety. Between that tree and the fence, there won’t be much sun. Fine fescue, maybe add some bluegrass. I’d go seeds, not sod, on this soil.”

Reese stared. “Since when do you know so much about horticulture, Lionel?”

“Since I worked summers for a landscaper, back in the day,” Fusco answer. “Another thing? Tilling the yard is a good idea, it’s probably packed solid. But when you’re doing it, you might as well work in some lime. Most of the soil in this part of the city is acidic as hell.”

“Quick lime?” John asked dubiously.

“No. Regular limestone. Crushed. It’s inert. They sell it in bags, little pellets. Use a seed spreader, throw it down, run the rototiller over it. Then throw another bag or two down every year on the grass, when you feed. It’ll make a big difference.”

“If you’re such an expert, maybe you ought to do the tilling,” Reese suggested.

Fusco considered. “Nah. I think you got this.” He headed for the door.

John walked in with him. They took the stairs up to the third floor. “Hockey again?”

“She likes the fights.”

“Figures. She gets tired or something, give me a call, I’ll come pick her up.”

“Sure.” Fusco glanced at him. “She seems okay. You know something I don’t?”

 _Lots of things,_ Reese thought, but he shook his head. In the four weeks since Christine had been shot in the precinct, Fusco had been almost as persistent about checking in on her as Reese himself had been. John appreciated it. He wanted to blame the detective for the shooting, but he’d reviewed the surveillance tapes with Finch. There hadn’t been anything Fusco could have done. “I just worry.”

“Yeah.” Fusco paused at the back door to the apartment. “You think we’re ever going to get her to actually move in here?”

John sighed. “I don’t know. But I’m pretty sure this isn’t the right time to push.”

“I hear that.”

They went inside. The kitchen was completed and fully equipped. The bedrooms were also finished and furnished, with the furniture covered with sheets of plastic. Christine had elected to buy new furniture for the new place and leave her apartment over Chaos fully furnished and habitable as well. She claimed that John and Harold could use it as a very secure safe house if they needed to. It seemed to John that it was more a security blanket for her, that she was keeping her option to return to Chaos open. But if that was the provision she needed to make the move possible, he wasn’t going to argue it. Yet.

When Christine Fitzgerald was fourteen years old, Lionel Fusco had shot her gun-wielding father to death in front of a bar. Years later, Christine had bought the building and converted it into the Chaos Cafe. She’d had been living on the third floor for years. All of her friends agreed that it wasn’t healthy for her. Harold had bought her this new building in an attempt to get her to relocate. And she was moving that direction – with agonizing, deliberate slowness.

Now the new apartment was very nearly complete. There was a study off the living room that had a complete upgrade of her existing computer system. There was also a hidden room off the kitchen that had a set-up designed to Finch’s specifications, for his use in emergencies. Everything was complete except the living room, where the covered furniture was crowded into the center of the room.

The walls were primer white. Christine was still trying to pick a paint color.

There was a work table completely covered with color cards. They were sorted by general color family – blues, greens, reds, yellows. There were hundreds of them. And she was still dithering.

It was so out of character for her to dither about anything that John was absolutely certain that not only was she stalling, but that she was _aware_ that she was stalling. Still, when she’d come so far toward something that was terribly difficult for her, he wasn’t about to push. She was trying.

“What about this one?” Lee asked, holding up a card.

Christine as also wearing a Bruins jersey. “That’s orange.”

“This?”

“Too yellow. I want gold.”

“This is gold,” the boy protested.

“It’s yellow. I want … like champagne. Gold.”

Reese shot Fusco a look. At least she’d narrowed it down to a color family.

Lee picked up a third card. “Like this?”

“That’s beige.”

He sighed and pushed through more cards.

“Hey, Lionel,” Christine said. She hugged him briefly. She eyed Reese up and down, shook her head. “We really can hire people, you know. You could supervise.”

“Ah, let him do it,” Fusco urged. “It helps keep down his violent tendencies.”

“Not always,” Reese warned pleasantly.

“This?” Lee asked.

“Too brownish. Gold. Champagne gold.”

The boy frowned at her. “Can I use your tablet for a minute?”

“Sure.”

“Just for a minute,” Fusco said. “We still have to pick Rhonda up.”

“Okay.”

The detective looked around. “The place looks great. Looks like it’s just about finished.”

“Just about,” she agreed.

“So, when do you want us to come help move your stuff over?” he asked casually.

Reese watched her closely. Her arms came up, wrapped around her own waist. Her open palm rubbed across her ribs, over the spot where they’d repaired a long-broken bone. But more telling, her jaw clenched as she ground her back teeth softly.

She was very stressed.

He shot Fusco a warning look. The detective shrugged.

“Still got to get this room painted,” Christine answered.

“This color?” Lee asked. He brought the tablet over. The screen was entirely filled with a single color – champagne gold. “Is this the color?”

Christine smiled. “That’s it. Where did you find this?”

The boy grinned. He touched the screen and zoomed out. The picture evolved into pants. On a football player. “Saints,” he said. “That’s Drew Brees’ ass.”

“Lee,” Fusco said absently.

“Sorry, Dad.” He zoomed out further to reveal the whole player. The color was indeed Drew Brees’ football pants.

Christine looked around the room. “So I’m going to paint my living room the color of Drew Brees’ ass.”

Fusco chuckled. “Not the worst choice you could make.”

“No,” she agreed slowly. “I kinda like it. I wonder if the guys can find it.”

“Saints gold?” Reese said. “I’m sure they can. Now that you can tell them what you want.”

She nodded. “Okay.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. This is the color.”

Reese nodded, relieved.

“We got to go,” Fusco said.

She looked to Reese. “Do you need anything?”

“More water,” he said, gesturing with the empty bottle. “I know where it is. I’ll lock up when I’m done.”

“You’ve been out there for hours.”

He shrugged. His t-shirt was filthy. So were his arms, above the glove-line, and his jeans and his boots. He was sweaty and dirty-covered, vaguely achy in the lesser-used muscles, and he felt better than he had in a very long time. “I’m enjoying myself.”

“There will be steaks,” she promised.

“All summer long,” he agreed. He nodded to Fusco. “Have fun. I’ll see you later.”

The three Bruins fans headed out. Before the door closed, Reese heard another reference to Drew Brees’ ass, and Lee giggled in response. He grinned, then walked to the kitchen and got a bottle of water. He drank it down, got another to take outside.

He checked his phone before he pulled his gloves back on, but there were no messages and no missed calls. He might actually get this done before he got interrupted. He put the phone and the water on the back step and got back to work.

He felt a little twinge in his lower left ab when he picked up the next slab, and it got worse before he finished. The old spot, the place where Snow’s flunky had shot him, a long time ago. When Finch had risked his life and his freedom to save him. When he’d gotten him stitched up in the morgue. Reese smiled grimly and worked through it. Even that felt good.

Christine was right, of course. They could easily have hired men to do this work – and build the fence, till the soil, plant the grass. If he and Finch got a lot of new cases he might go that way. But for now the physical work was calming. It felt good to wash off regular old dirt at the end of the day, instead of blood and grime. He liked working outside, now that the weather had broken for the moment. He found it all very satisfying.

He wondered if it would have been as satisfying if it wasn’t _her_ yard he was working on.

 ***

Harold Finch glanced at his watch, then looked up at the doorway of the townhouse. Everett was late. Only a few minutes, so far, but it wasn’t a good sign. 

He hoped the photographer had at least had the sense to call. Grace probably wouldn’t mind, but it would be rude.

The pay phone to his left rang.

Finch glance at it and growled under his breath. At his feet, Bear looked up expectantly. “Yes, yes,” Harold sighed. He turned reluctantly and walked to the phone.

While he listened to the key words, he looked toward the townhouse again. A cab stopped right in front of it and Gregg Everett got out. The photographer ran up the steps two at a time, but the front door opened before he could knock. Grace had been watching for him.

She looked lovely. She was wearing a very pale pink sweater and dark pants. She carried her jacket over her arm; Harold knew it was the navy wool car coat he’d bought for her years before. He nodded his approval; it was warm enough now, but it would get cool as soon as the sun went down.

Grace leaned and kissed Everett on the cheek. Then she pulled the door shut behind her, checked that it had locked, and held her hand out. Everett walked her down to the waiting cab.

And then she was out of sight.

Bear tugged very gently at his leash.

“Yes,” Harold said again. “Yes, yes.”

He hung up the pay phone and pulled out his cell. It rang four times before Reese answered. “Yeah, Finch?” He sounded a little breathless.

“I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

“Breakin’ rocks in the hot sun,” John answered easily.

Finch snorted. “It’s not that hot today.”

“It is if you’re breakin’ rocks.”

“I suppose so.”

“New Number?”

“Yes.” Harold considered. “It just came in. I haven’t had a chance to do any research. So you can take time to shower and change.”

“Are you implying that you think I smell bad, Finch?”

“Well you have, as you say, been breakin’ rocks.”

Reese chuckled. “All right, fine. I’ll be there in a bit.”

“I’ll meet you at the library.”

“You aren’t there now?” There was a suddenly note of curiosity in the man’s voice.

“Bear and I are taking a walk in the park.”

“Oh.” From that one syllable, Reese implied that he knew exactly which park they were walking in and why. That he knew Finch was staring at that particular doorway again. He wasn’t wrong, of course. But he didn’t comment. There was really nothing to say. “You have any dinner yet?”

“No.”

“I’ll grab Chinese on my way.”

The phone went dead.

Finch looked toward the townhouse one last time, but of course Everett and Grace were long gone. They were headed for dinner at a new Italian restaurant in the Village, then a gallery opening ….

He shook his head. He had no business watching them even this far, much less knowing their plans for the evening. He had work to do.

He clucked to Bear and the two of them started off.

 ***

Teddy Edwins climbed the stairs to the fourth floor of the tired apartment building same as he’d done every Tuesday night since his partner had died. Tuesday, because Wednesday was Monica’s morning off. The stairs were a bitch on his leg. There was an elevator, but it was labeled FOR HANDICAPPED USE ONLY. He wasn’t willing to admit he was handicapped. Not enough to use the elevator, anyhow.

He knocked on the plain wooden door, and a woman called, “Come on in!”

Edwins let himself in. The room was very warm and smelled like onions and garlic and dozen other spices. It smelled wonderful.

“You should keep the door locked,” he called in the direction of the kitchen.

“It’s Tuesday. I knew it was you,” the woman called back. She came out of the kitchen. Her gray hair was up in a loose bun, as always, and she wore a long cloth apron. She crossed the room and kissed him on the cheek. “So good to see you, Teddy.”

“Monica. What’s for dinner?”

“Lasagna. Go wash up.”

“Lasagna for just the two of us?”

“Just a small one,” she assured him. “And I’ll send the leftovers home with you. Then you’ll have two decent meals this week.”

“You’re spoiling me, Monica.” He patted his gently rounded belly. “And it’s going right to my waist.”

He went and washed up.

He wasn’t kidding, he thought ruefully as he washed his hands. He’d gained at least fifteen pounds since Monica had started feeding him every week. But he couldn’t really complain. The food was damn good, and she always sent home at least a meal’s worth of leftovers. She didn’t have to feed him; he’d told her that a dozen times. But she liked to cook, and it gave her something to do.

Something besides sit around her apartment and mourn her dead son.

It hadn’t been his fault, Leyland’s death. They both knew that, and Monica had never once implied that it was. It was just that Teddy was all she had left.

So he’d keep coming for Tuesday dinner as long as Monica needed him to.

He went out and sat down at the table for dinner.

 ***

Reese swung open the hidden panel in the kitchen and cut through Harold’s secret back-up computer room to the equally-secret walk-in closet. It was fully stocked: There were clothes for all occasions in his size and Harold’s, complete sets of identity documents for both of them – plus Christine, Carter and Fusco – and plentiful cash. Reese had added modest arsenal, in a hidden locked compartment at the back of the closet. Finch had a clean laptop and one set up to access his systems.

In event of an emergency, this closet had everything they needed for the short term.

Getting clean and to the library didn’t really constitute an emergency. Reese could go back to his loft easily enough. But he was here, and there was a clean suit here, and it made more sense. It gave them a chance, he reasoned as he stripped off his dirt-covered clothes, to work out the bugs in the restocking system.

Also, he wanted to try out the shower.

It was Christine’s apartment, and she’d made most of the decisions about the build-out. But in this small secret area she and Harold had actively solicited Reese’s input. Based on his suggestion, there was an entire cupboard filled with first aid materials, and another with non-perishable food and bottled water. He had also suggested that the lowest section of the long drawers be converted into a pull-out trundle bed. If he or Harold actually got trapped here, they could hide in relative comfort and silence for at least seven days. 

He had requested, and gotten without comment, a high-powered massaging showerhead in the shower.

Reese turned on the water and let it run on the normal setting until it was hot. Then he climbed in and washed thoroughly. Once he was clean and had rinsed most of the grit down the drain, he turned the dial and let the pulsing water pound on his back.

As he’d hoped, the water massage loosened the worst of the kinks hours of breaking rocks had caused. He stood still for several minutes, shifting just enough to move the impact from his neck to his lower back and up again. Then he half-turned and raised his arm to let the water pummel the spot on his ribs that had pinched earlier. It was perfect.

Reese nodded to himself. The next time he got beat up, he decided, he was coming here to clean up.

Whether Christine was actually living here then or not.

He frowned and turned his back to the pulsing water spray again. He wanted to get the woman to move. But it was tricky. Christine could be incredibly stubborn. She could be reasoned with, persuaded, but she could not be forced. And while she’d agreed to the move as a concept, she seemed to be resisting actually pulling the trigger on it.

Reese had never been quite sure how to deal with her. She was an introvert, like Harold, but she was also very cat-like – unexpectedly affectionate at times, unaccountably prickly at others. She’d grieved over Agent Donnelly for weeks before he’d even caught on to her grief. He’d been dead wrong the night he’d thought she was going to start using heroine again. And in so many other instances he’d been certain he’d known what she was thinking, what she was going to do, and he’d been completely wrong.

Since the shooting and her subsequent near-death experience, she’d become even more confusing to him.  

Wounded introverts retreat. He’d learned that from Finch, and Christine had reinforced the lesson. He’d been fully prepared to give the woman space and privacy. But she hadn’t insisted on it. Instead she’d reached out to him. To tell her a story on the phone when she’d woken up frightened in the hospital. To bring her real coffee when the hospital’s kitchen would only send her decaf.  To take a hand-written note to – and get trustworthy eyes on – the young girl who’d been beside her when she was shot.

They were small things, things that nearly anyone could have done. But Christine had turned to John. He was pleased by that. Touched. 

He’d brought her home from the hospital three days after her surgery. He’d announced that he was staying overnight with her. He’d had seven good arguments lined up. He hadn’t used any of them. Christine had simply nodded and said, “Can we stop for gyros on the way?”

John had bought her Greek food – she only ate half of hers -- and tucked her into bed. He’d tried to sleep in the guest room across the hall, with both doors open, but the woman’s breathing was too soft to hear from there. After the first half hour he’d given up, dragged a pillow and blanket into her room and slept on the floor beside her bed.

A change in her breathing, hours later, woke him. She wasn’t in distress, but she was awake. She’d sighed and rolled out of the bed. “You okay, Kitten?” John had asked.

“Pain pills,” she’d answered. She’d stepped around him and went to the bathroom. When she came back, she’d said, “What are you doing?”

“I couldn’t hear you breathe from the other room.”

“I’m okay.”

“I know.”

She’d sighed, exasperated. “Then come sleep up here on the bed.”

“I’m fine.”

“Or I’ll come down there and sleep with you.”

John had grunted and climbed up onto the bed.

Christine had fallen back to sleep almost immediately. He’d stayed awake for a while. It was very comfortable there. He’d kept a respectable space between them, but he’d savored her warmth, her closeness. Her scent.

And with her right there, in arm’s reach, John had been assured that she was safe.

It felt better than anything he’d experienced in a very long time. He’d relaxed into sleep.

When he’d woken it was morning. Christine had still been sleeping. She’d been curled into a small fetal ball, her knees nearly against her chest, on the far edge of the mattress. Her arm was up over her shoulder, so that her hand rested on the back of her own neck. Reese had known instinctively that she always ended up sleeping that way, her whole life. Just in case.

In case her long-dead mother reappeared and began to beat her while she slept, as she had when Christine was a child.

His heart had ached for her. He’d wondered how long it would take for her to unlearn that way of sleeping. If she had days and weeks and months of sleeping beside someone that she could trust, that she absolutely knew would protect her, how long would it be before she could sleep a whole night unafraid?

The next night he’d slept beside her again. She hadn’t protested. She had curled up in her sleep again. After breakfast, she’d asked him to drive her to Ground Zero. He’d agreed without question, but he was wildly curious. He hadn’t learned much, though. Christine had climbed out of his car, walked to the railing that surrounded the Memorial, and stood for ten minutes looking out over the fountains. Then, without a word, she’d taken his arm and walked back to the car.

They picked up a new Number that day, and Reese had worked all night. He’d brought Bear to stay with her, and Christine had left her phone on the bedside table so Finch could monitor her overnight.

The fourth night she’d returned the dog and turned off her phone. She hadn’t argued or been upset; she’d been very gentle about it. By then they were all fairly confident that Christine would be safe on her own.

And by then, Reese had begun to think that he was probably in love with her.

He shut off the shower and got out. It was still very strange to him. When he’d fallen in love with Jessica, it hit him like a brick. He’d known with absolute certainty, and he’d had a driving need, a demand, to claim her for his own. What he felt for Christine was utterly different. There was no rush, no urgency, emotional or physical. He was content merely to be close to her as she recovered from her injuries. He wasn’t anxious. He was calm. Peaceful, so long as he knew she was safe.

He wasn’t worried that she was out with Fusco. The detective would look after her. The last time she’d gone to a hockey game she’d tried to end the evening in bed with a hockey player, but even that didn’t bother Reese now. She probably wouldn’t do it again. And even if she did …

Christine was an extraordinarily good judge of character. If she picked up a random guy tonight, he’d be someone who knew how to treat a lady. One who would be careful of her mending rib and mostly-healed gunshot wound. Someone who would treat her well and bring her home safe in the morning. She would be okay.   

His eyes narrowed as he toweled off.  It was curious, he thought, that it didn’t seem to matter. The last time it had almost happened he’d been furious. Now he was just … well, mildly concerned at best. That wasn’t like him. He didn’t share well: He had a wide possessive streak, where women were involved. And if he really was in love with Christine, why did the idea of her in bed with another man, so long as she was safe, not bother him?

Maybe, he thought as he got dressed, it was just a carry-over from his relationship with Zoe Morgan. He and the fixer were friends, and they occasionally shared a bed. It was nice, but it wasn’t an emotional entanglement by any means. They both knew it was sex with no strings attached, and jealousy would have been out of place. What he was contemplating with Christine was far more, a full relationship, but maybe he was just out of the habit of being possessive.

It still felt wrong.

Maybe, he amended mentally, he wasn’t worried because he was fairly certain Christine would be sleeping alone. As much as she’d tolerated his presence since the shooting, he felt pretty comfortable in assuming that she felt something for him, too.

But in any case he hadn’t spoken; he hadn’t, as Fusco so elegantly put it, staked his claim. So if she ended up in bed with someone else, he didn’t really have any grounds to be offended.

It was complicated. Falling in love with Jessica hadn’t been this complicated.

Of course, Reese thought, pulling on his jacket, his life hadn’t been this complicated then, either.

He shrugged. Then he packed up his dirty clothes and the wet towel, carried his work boots, and let himself out of the apartment.

 ***


	2. Chapter 2

Finch glanced at him as Reese entered the library. “How goes the patio?”

“Well,” John answered. “It’ll be ready for the edging tomorrow. Or whenever I get back to it. If the weather holds.” He set the bag of carry-out containers on the desk. Smokey, Christine’s cat who was on permanent loan to the library for rodent control, was curled tightly in a shoe box. He scratched her ears and she opened one blue eye briefly, then drifted back to sleep. “Also the secret shower works.”

“That’s good to know, I suppose.” Finch nodded toward the board as he moved back to his chair. There was a picture there already, an unremarkable young man with stringy dark blond hair and brown eyes. He was wearing a blue uniform shirt; the photo was obviously from a work ID. “Jason Cutter. Twenty-seven. He works as an unarmed security guard for Buckler Security. He’s been assigned to the night shift at the Marshall Office Tower for the past two years.” 

Bear ambled over and looked at Reese expectantly. He crouched to pet the dog, too. Then he stood and studied the photo.

Finch settled into his chair. “Mr. Cutter is single and lives alone. He holds an associate’s degree from New York Community College. Average credit, a bit over-extended on his credit cards. Nothing remarkable about his bank statements. The largest deposits are his annual Christmas bonuses. No drivers’ license. No criminal record that I can find; I’ll ask one of our associates to search further in the morning. A rather minimal electronic footprint. So far, nothing suggestive.”

“Nothing that tells us who wants to kill him.”

“Or who he may want to kill. No.” Finch shook his head. “I’ve only just begun my research. It’s possible that something may appear.”

John glanced at him. He didn’t ask how his partner’s walk in the park had been. Much as Christine would have to move from her apartment over Chaos in her own time, Finch would need to stop watching Grace Hendricks in his own. If he ever did. “Is he working tonight?”

“He’s scheduled to work at eleven, yes.”

“Might be a good time to have a look at his apartment.”

“Yes. I’ll continue to look into his background.”

Reese’s phone chirped, and he knew without looking that he’d received the Number’s home address. “Start with girlfriends. Past, present, or imaginary. And see if you can get eyes in that building.”

Finch nodded, but he was already focused again on his screens. John glanced at his watch. Then he picked up the bag and went to the kitchen area for plates and real silverware.

“I’m really not very hungry at the moment,” Harold called after him.

Finch was never hungry after he’d been out to watch Grace. But if had food right in front of him, he might eat anyhow. Reese shrugged to himself and continued to dish up the food onto two plates.  

***

“Mr. Reese?” Finch said aloud, “Mr. Cutter just came into the lobby. I’m up on all the public space cameras in the building.”

“Nice work, Finch,” Reese replied over the link. “I’m going in.”

Finch watched for a moment while the security guards worked through the shift change. There were four guards on the evening shift, but three at night; only one of them was armed. He could access cameras in the lobby, at the building entrances, and in all corridors. He also had access to the handful of cameras covering the outside of the building. Harold hadn’t had much trouble getting inside the wi-fi, which ran the entire security system. It was a nicely comprehensive system. The password hadn’t been updated in three years.

Young Mr. Cutter settled at the front desk. The armed guard walked the four who were leaving to the loading dock entrance and saw them out, then locked the door behind them and took up his post there. The third member of the team took an elevator to the top floor and began a very leisurely walk-through.

As soon as he was alone in the lobby, Cutter pulled out a small laptop and turned it on. Finch checked, but there was no interaction with the building wi-fi. Cutter was playing some kind of self-contained game. Harold used the camera behind the desk to get badly-distorted view of the screen; he could tell from the graphics that it was some kind of graphic adventure game.

That was not likely to help him determine who wanted to harm Mr. Cutter. Or who he wanted to harm.

Finch moved the lobby view to a screen to his left.

It would be useful, he decided, to look into the backgrounds of the men Mr. Cutter worked with. He got their names off the wi-fi, but to get backgrounds he needed to hack into security firm. Buckler at least updated their network passwords on a regular basis. They also had a comprehensive and current firewall. Finch made a little face at the screen. He’d become rather accustomed to average or below-average computer security. It annoyed him to find a system that had been so recently updated.

He paused, his hands hovering over the keyboard again. Something about the configuration. Something about the specific updates …

His mouth curved into a small smile. He diverted his left hand from the keyboard and picked up his phone instead. It was late; he sent a text rather than calling. Within a minute his phone rang. “Christine,” he answered happily, “I hope I didn’t wake you.”

By then he could hear the background noise. If she was home, she certainly wasn’t alone. “No, I was up,” she answered cheerfully. “Corrupting the youth of New York. Introducing Will and Julie to the venerable time-suck that is _Dungeons and Dragons_.”

Finch nodded fondly. “Some computerized multi-player version, I’m sure.”

There was a roar behind her, then shouts as the party battled a group of trolls. “Way too mainstream,” she answered. “We’re playing old school.” The noise grew quieter; evidently she moved away from the table. “Books, graph paper, twenty-sided dice. Little lead figurines.”

“Good heavens.”

“Wanna come over? They could use a decent thief.”

“That does sound … interesting,” Finch allowed. “But unfortunately I have to decline.”

“Next time, then. Whatcha need?”

“Buckler Security. We’re investigating one of their employees, and their network appears to have your recent fingerprints on it.”

“Hmmmm,” Christine answered. She didn’t sound displeased or surprised. “If I’m that identifiable I need to switch up my game.”

“It’s likely only identifiable to someone who admires your work,” Finch assured her. “Or someone who’s stalking you, of course.”  

“And which are you again?”

He chuckled. “Some of both, naturally. Are they one of yours?”

“They are,” she admitted. “Would you like my access?”

“That would be useful, yes.”

“One sec.”

He listened for a moment to the click of small keys and the background noise of the café. It sounded as if the D&D campaign was going well. The party had defeated the trolls and was wisely searching the bodies for useful items. There was a great deal of laughter.

Harold sat back and looked at the ceiling, remembering. A crowded dorm room, hot from too many bodies. A cold breeze coming in from the half inch they’d cracked the window open. A wobbly folding table. Games that went on until sunrise. Loud impassioned arguments over arcane rules. Graph paper and twenty-sided dice, yes. Nathan had had a die set that looked like gemstones. The 20 SD was vibrant purple. …

Nathan would never have thought to teach Will to play D&D. Harold hadn’t, either. It was something from their past. Something he’d given up ages ago.

He missed it suddenly, sharply. He missed Nathan.

“Here you go,” Christine said.

Harold glanced at the text message on his screen. “Thank you.”

“Are you okay, Random?”

Finch smiled again. Two simple words, and she’d picked up on the pained nostalgia he was feeling. “I’m fine,” he assured her. “Just reminiscing a bit. I had a Bag of Holding once named OLP. Old Lady’s Purse.”

Christine chuckled. “Because it held everything you could ever need, of course.”

“Of course.”

“We should adventure some time.”

“I thought we already had.”

“Your point is well taken,” she agreed. “Anything else I can help with?”

“Not right now. But I do appreciate the offer.”

“Call me if you need me.”

“I will.”

The call went dead.

Finch looked at ceiling a little more. A thief, he mused. Christine thought he’d be good playing a thief. She wasn’t wrong. Back in the day, his most enjoyable and memorable player characters had been thieves. Nathan played magic users, sometimes clerics, sometimes warriors, but Harold, given his choice, would be a thief every time. It was a funny that she’d guessed that. But maybe it was just a coincidence, the character that the game at Chaos needed.

Or maybe it was that, given a choice, Christine would play a thief every time, too.

He smiled to himself. Then he sat up and used her back door to access Buckler Security’s network.

 ***

Jason Cutter lived on the third floor of an aging apartment building. Reese could tell just by the number of units in the building that the space would be small. He still wasn’t quite prepared for the cramped living space. He’d seen motor homes that had more room.

Cutter was, either naturally or of necessity, very neat. To the right of the door was a tiny kitchen area. There was a drain mat beside the sink. On it was a coffee mug, a cereal bowl, and two spoons, all clean. Everything else was put away.

Straight ahead was a living area. There were built-in shelves on one wall all the way to the ceiling. Cutter had some big paperback books, the Idiot’s Guide types, on computer security, networking, programming, and Windows. Another shelf held cans of soup and boxes of noodles and other non-perishables. Reese glanced again toward the kitchen; there were only three cupboards. On the shelves nearest the bedroom were folded clothes, nearly sorted: Pants, shirts, towels. In between, there were three whole shelves of video and computer games and gear. On the opposite wall was a huge flat screen television, with three different game systems on a tiny table beneath it.

On the top shelf, there was a neat stack of ten small boxes. John stood on the heavily-used couch to reach them. They were knives, the QVC variety, various lengths and styles, fancy-looking but cheaply made. Nine of the boxes still held their knives. The tenth was empty. The label said that it held a “Cascadia Brand Bush Series with Black Micarta Handle - Plain Edge and Hand-Tooled Sheath”. Further reading told him that the knife had a seven-inch blade and was “high-carbon style”. Like the others, in Reese’s view, it was likely complete crap as a weapon.

Besides the couch there was one other cushioned chair, and a wooden chair at a table that served as a desk. There was a docking station and a flat screen monitor, but no computer.

Reese moved on to the bedroom. It was big enough for a queen-sized bed, but that left no space room for a dresser. It was the only room with a window. He looked out past the edge of the plain white roller shade. There was a tree directly outside the window, with big bare branches, and beyond that was the street. He squeezed around the bed to open the closet. Extra blankets on the top shelf. Uniforms on the bar. Shoes underneath. Winter gear stuffed to the side. There was a door to the tiny bathroom. John opened the medicine cabinet, but there was nothing remarkable there. Beside the bathroom there was a tiny utility room which held the smallest furnace Reese had ever seen outside of a camper trailed and an equally small water heater.

He sighed and tapped his earpiece. “Finch?”

“I’m here, Mr. Reese.”

“Cutter lives in a shoe box. I’m not seeing anything suggestive. He seems to spend most of his money on video games.”

“Does he have a computer?”

“Laptop, from the look of it, and it’s not here.”

Finch sighed audibly. “I’ve looked at his work history. There’s no record of any conflict with his co-workers, no disciplinary action. He seems to be a perfectly unremarkable young man.”

“Well, somebody thinks he’d remarkable enough to kill,” Reese mused. He looked up. Above the bedroom door there was a combination smoke and carbon monoxide detector. The cover wasn’t latched; he pushed it up and could see that the battery had been removed; probably it had run low and begun to beep. John stuck a small camera right above it. The detector masked it nicely.

He moved back to the living room and set two more cameras. “Cameras up, Finch.”

“Visual and audio up on all three.”

Reese went back to the table-desk and shuffled through the pile of papers next to the monitor. Bills and junk mail.

“It’s unlikely that he has access to anything through his job that would provoke any this danger,” Finch said, half to himself. “Equally unlikely that he’s witnessed anything of note, although that remains a possibility.”

“No girlfriend?” Reese asked. He leaned down and found a small drawer under the edge of the table. He pulled, but nothing happened. There was a little metal tab. He pushed it and the piece swung open: it wasn’t a drawer, but a little door. Inside, stored under the table, were the two leafs that would make the table too big for the space.

“No girlfriend,” Finch answered morosely. “No boyfriend, either, as far as I can tell.”

John moved to close the little door and his finger bumped something. He pulled the leaf out a bit. On top of it was a very small notebook, three by five inches, black leather and very well worn. “But he does have the proverbial little black book,” Reese said happily.

“Really? How very old-fashioned of him.”

John grunted. He opened the notebook to the first page. There were several lines of neat, precise printing.

****

**_Krystal             Krystal2179@y            N2NY - PW 1_ **

**_Moved from Minneapolis Jan 4, 2009_ **

**_Mugged on subway    Jan 7_ **

**_Molested by boss         Feb 6_ **

**_Apt. robbed     Feb 19_ **

**_Fired from job            Mar 1_ **

**_Raped on subway       Mar 2_ **

 

“Finch …” John breathed. “This is … “

“What is it, Mr. Reese?”

Reese pulled out his phone and snapped a picture of the page. He hit send, then turned the page. A woman named Mina was the subject of the next entry, and she had a similar litany of difficulties. The third page was about D’Nah.

“Mr. Reese … “ Finch said. From his tone, John knew he was looking at the photo.

“I’m sending more,” Reese answered grimly. He snapped pictures of each page of the book and forwarded them.

There were sixteen full entries. On the final page, there was only a partial entry:

****

**_Martha K.       LonelyMK@g FFPO PW 7_ **

 

“Is he a … serial killer?” Finch asked. His voice was quiet with horror.

“I don’t know.” Reese flipped through the rest of the book, but it was empty. He put it back and closed the little door. Then he looked around the apartment again. “I’m going to take a closer look. Cutter’s still at work?”

There was a brief pause. “Yes. They’ve changed assignments. He’s doing a walk-through of the building.”

“Good. See what you can find out about Martha K. If he is a killer, she’s next on his list.”

“Right away, Mr. Reese.”

Grimly, Reese went to the bedroom and began to search it thoroughly.

 ***

A thorough search of the apartment turned up nothing more. Reese conferred with Finch, then went home and slept for a few hours. Early in the morning, he took a cab to the office tower and waited for Cutter to get off work.

The young man came out the back door, at the loading dock. He grumbled to his co-workers, then walked toward the subway station. He had headphones on. He kept his hands in his jacket pocket. He didn’t look around.

Jason Cutter did not behave like a man who thought someone might be planning to kill him. Which made it more likely he was planning to kill someone else.

There was a small deli on the corner before the subway stop. It was quite crowded with commuters trying to grab breakfast before they went in to work. A single line of patrons formed from the front door the counter in the back, past a case of meats and cheese that would be sold later in the day. Those waiting stayed to the right; once they had their bags of breakfast, the worked came out to the left. There was a set and limited menu, with all the items prepared in large quantities by three men busy at a grill. It was jammed, but orderly and very efficient.

Cutter got in line, but he was obviously not patient. He grumbled under his breath, shifted from foot to foot, crowded the man in front of him. His muttering grew louder when the person at the front of the line didn’t have exact cash ready. He did a lot of sighing.

Reese stayed outside the deli and kept an eye on him through the open door. Five minutes of watching the young man made him long to sucker-punch him.

Eventually Cutter arrived at the front of the line He ordered too loudly; the older woman behind the counter flinched at his tone, but she looked resigned, like he barked at her every morning. She gave him his breakfast sandwich in a bag, smiled and thanked him. Cutter muttered something that didn’t sound like “thank you” from where Reese stood. Then he shoved his way rudely back to the street.

John followed him into the subway. Cutter walked to the far end of the platform. It wasn’t very crowd at this hour; all the traffic was incoming, not outbound. Reese waited idly a dozen yards away. They got on the same car. Cutter sat at the front, put his feet against the front of the car, slouched down and ate his breakfast.

Jason Cutter chewed with his mouth open. Reese wasn’t surprised.

He tapped his earpiece. “Finch?”

“Good morning, Mr. Reese.”

“Did you get any sleep?”

There was a brief pause. “I haven’t had any luck finding anything about Martha K. I’ve sent an e-mail to one of our friends at the police department. Perhaps they’ll be able to shed some light.”

“If someone’s after Cutter, he doesn’t know about it.”

Finch sighed.

“I’ll follow him home,” John continued, “and then I’ll come in.”

“Very well.”

No one tried to kill Jason Cutter on his ride home, despite his bad manners. At his stop, Cutter lurched to the door. A young black woman with a toddler in her arms was trying to board. Cutter and the woman both stepped to the same side to get out of each other’s way, then back the other way. “Get the hell out of my way, you cow!” Cutter yelled. He darted around the woman, bumping her, and strode off.

Reese left the subway car by the back door. “I don’t like this guy, Finch.”

“That doesn’t mean he’s a killer, Mr. Reese.”

“No. It just means he’s a jerk.”

“He wouldn’t be our first thoroughly unlikeable victim, I’m afraid.”

“No, he wouldn’t.”

Reese growled to himself and followed the possibly-endangered jerk home.

 ***

Lionel Fusco was a little late getting to his desk in the morning, but no one noticed. No one in the NYPD, anyhow. The minute his butt hit his chair, his phone rang. Fusco smirked at it. He was sure it was one of two people. Or, the thought, glancing at the empty chair across from him, it was Carter, either running late or already on a case. He picked up the phone. “Fusco.”

“Good morning, Detective.”

Fusco relaxed a little. It was Glasses. He didn’t need to keep his verbal sparring gloves on. “Morning.”

“I’m sorry to bother you so early,” Finch said, “but we have an issue that is rather urgent. If you could check your e-mail at your earliest convenience, I would appreciate it.”

“I haven’t even logged in yet,” Fusco sighed. “Give me a minute.”

“Call me back when you can.”

He put down the phone and logged in to his computer. While it was connecting, Carter came in. She looked frazzled. “Traffic?” he asked.

The detective shook her head. “I swear it gets worse every day.”

“I hear that.”

The computer came up; he opened his e-mail.

“You catch a case already?” Carter asked.

“Not an official one,” Fusco said drily.

She nodded sympathetically. “I’ll get you some coffee.”

“Appreciate it.”

There were ten new messages in his inbox. Eight were official business, routine stuff. One was from CTP – Concerned Third Party. The last was a reminder from his calendar with the subject: Lunch w/Lee.

Fusco nodded. His son’s school was having some kind of “Connect with Parents” thing where the students invited their parents to have lunch with them in the school cafeteria. Normally Fusco’s ex would go to that sort of thing, but Lee has specifically asked Lionel to come – and to bring Christine. Lee’s friend Marissa wanted to see her, and this was the easiest way to arrange it without attracting attention. Everyone would think Christine was Lionel’s girlfriend, of course, but he’d already talked to Rhonda about it and she didn’t mind. It was only half an hour out of Fusco’s day – plus half an hour commute each way, if he was lucky. But he wasn’t complaining. It was important.

Fusco nodded to himself and opened the second e-mail.

 ***

When the Number was safe behind his own locked door, John made his way back to the library. He stopped for coffee and tea, and also for breakfast sandwiches. He hadn’t had much sleep and Finch had been up all night; donuts weren’t going to cut it.

The wind had shifted and there was a bite in the air as the sun came up. Winter hadn’t given up the city quite yet; the forecast called for temperatures in the twenties for the rest of the week. Reese shivered on his way from the car in just his suit, but he knew he had an overcoat at the library.

The monitors on the desk showed the feeds from the cameras in Cutter’s apartment. The young man was visible on the center screen. He was sitting on his couch, playing video games.

When John had left the night before, there were only a few items on the cracked board. Now the main board and both of the side boards were covered. Finch was standing, frowning at them. “Good morning, Mr. Reese.”

“Finch.” John set the breakfast down and leaned to greet Bear. “You’ve been busy.”

“Generating far more questions than answers, I’m afraid.” Finch walked back to the desk and picked up a wrapped sandwich. “Thank you.”

“Anything from the black book?”

“Not yet. None of the user names listed actually exist. I’ve sent Detective Fusco a list of the crimes and dates noted. Hopefully we’ll be able to identify some of these women. That would at least give us a place to start.” He paused to chew, then gestured to the right, where prints of each page hung. “We may be on the wrong track, thinking that he may have harmed these women. This one, Cricket?” He gestured. “Her misfortunes don’t seem to involve any criminal activities. She was pregnant, gave birth prematurely, and her twins died. It’s tragic, certainly, but I don’t see where Mr. Cutter might have been involved.”

“Unless he was the father of the babies.”                                                                                          

“True.” Finch sighed. “Several of the other women were the same. They have tragic stories, but no criminal element involved.”

Reese chewed his own breakfast thoughtfully. “Maybe he’s defending them.”

“Hmmm?”

“If he’s stalking these women, maybe it’s not to harm them, but to protect them. To help them somehow.”

“That’s possible, I suppose. And that might give one of the perpetrators cause to come after him.” Finch shook his head. “The only thing I learned from my overnight surveillance of Mr. Cutter at work is that he’s not very diligent.”

“Oh?”

“The three guards take one-hour shifts at each post – the front desk, the loading dock door, and the walk-through. At all three posts, Mr. Cutter spends most of his time on his computer.”

“Even the walk-around?”

“They have access to all the offices. He picks one, makes himself comfortable, and sits on his backside for the rest of his hour. Also he steals the tenant’s coffee.”

Reese nodded. “I know people who might consider that a grievous offense.” He looked at the rest of the board. In the center, there were pictures of Cutter’s co-workers and various papers, back statements, his lease and such. On the left there were nine more pictures. “Who are these people?”

“Cleaning crew. They come in to the building at eight p.m. and leave at midnight. There are only four on each the job at a time, but it seemed sensible to run all of them. Some misdemeanors, traffic issues, but nothing suggestive.”

“What about tenants in the building?”

Finch made a face. “One thousand forty-seven suspects, as of the last building management census. I am hoping that circumstances will narrow the field.” He gestured to another set of papers. “There have been a handful of small thefts in the building over the past few months.”

“Beyond the coffee?”

“Petty cash funds, small office equipment, valuables from desks. Food from refrigerators. The most expensive items are several I-Pads that one company had purchased as client gifts. The thefts have been reported to Buckler and building management, but none have warranted a police report thus far.” Finch shook his head. “That may not be related at all. You didn’t find anything in his apartment?”

“He probably carries a cheap knife,” Reese reported. “Standard behavior for the city.”

Finch’s phone rang and he stabbed at it. “Detective?”

“This list you sent me?” Fusco said. “It’s a no-go.”

“What?”

“A rape on the subway, March 2 of ’09? There’s no record of it. Or the day before or the day after. I’m not saying it didn’t happen. A whole lot of rapes don’t get reported. But there’s no record. And not of any of these other crimes, either.”

“Not a single one?” Reese demanded.

“That’s what I said.”

Finch’s mouth drew into a tight circle of displeasure. “Thank you, Detective.” He clicked the phone off.

They turned together to the board. Those pages of crimes that had never been reported. That maybe had never happened at all.

“Perhaps he’s a … novelist,” Finch finally ventured, with great uncertainty. “Or a screen writer?”

“Or maybe these things didn’t happen in New York,” Reese countered, with just as little conviction.

“One thing is certain,” Harold finally pronounced. “We need to get our hands on Mr. Cutter’s laptop.”

 ***

 Fusco stopped by Chaos just before eleven. Christine brought him a cup of coffee, and a bigger one for herself.

“You look like hell,” the detective said. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Christine promised. She buckled her seat belt, then took a long sip of her coffee. “I just stayed up way too late last night.”

“You weren’t with some hockey player, were you?” Because, Fusco thought, that was likely to get _his_ ass kicked by Mr. Grumpy, even though he’d had nothing to do with it.

She shook her head. “No. I was playing D&D with Will and Julie and the gang. It was a lot of fun. But we stayed up way too late.”

“Will Ingram?”

“Yeah. You met him at the hospital.”

“Yeah. Nice kid.”

“He’s my age, Lionel.”

“Yeah, and you’re a nice kid, too.”

She snorted, but didn’t answer.

Fusco turned the car onto the main street. Traffic was still a mess; he was glad they’d left the café on time. “What’s his girlfriend like?”

“Julie? She’s good people. Very … practical. Pragmatic. Will needs that.”

“He kind of a space case?”

“He’s kind of a dreamer.” Christine swigged more coffee. “He’s an optimist and he sees the best in people. Julie’s a little more world-wise.”

“Doesn’t hurt that she’s rich as hell, too.”

“No. But I don’t think either of them cares about money very much.”

Fusco made a face. “It’s easy not to care about money when you don’t have to worry about where your rent’s coming from next month.”

“You’re not wrong there,” Christine agreed.

He drove in silence for a while. When he looked over, the woman’s eyes were closed. “You sure you’re okay with this?” he asked quietly. “Seeing Marisa and all?” The little girl, one of Lee’s classmates, had been who Christine was protecting when she got shot. “Cause if it’s too much …”

“No, it’s fine,” she assured him. She opened her eyes. “I’m looking forward to it, actually. And this is good. It gives us an excuse without any bullshit.”

The detective considered, then nodded. “Okay. But if you need to get out of there, just let me know. Lee will understand, I promise.”

“I’m okay, Lionel.” She drained her coffee cup. Then she reached for his. “Or, I will be, when I get caffeinated enough.”

Fusco shook his head and swerved around yet another idiot driver.

 ***

Reese tapped his earpiece. “Finch? What’s Cutter doing?”

“Still sitting on his couch,” the genius replied glumly. “There’s every chance he won’t go out until he leaves for work tonight.”

John looked up and down the street in front of the apartment building. “Five bucks says he walks down to the pizza place on the corner before he racks out.”

“Possible,” Finch allowed. “I’ll say he stops at the pizza place on his way to work. It looks like he’s about to fall asleep right where he is.”

“I hope not.” Reese shoved his hands in his pockets. The temperature was dropping like a rock. If he was going to be watching the building for ten hours or more, he needed to find somewhere warmer and less conspicuous than the street corner. The pizza place might not be a bad idea, at least for the first hour.

If Cutter didn’t leave his apartment until he went to work, he’d have his laptop with him. Reese knew the lay-out; he was tempted to risk breaking in again while the man was sleeping. _If_ he slept in his bed and not on the love seat in front of his big screen TV.

“Mr. Reese …” Finch said slowly.

“What is it?”

“I think … there’s something wrong with Mr. Cutter.”

“Wrong how?”

“He keeps shaking his head and rubbing his forehead. And swearing at his video game.”

“Well, he worked all night and he’s been playing for four hours. He probably has a headache.”

“Yes, but … his speech is slurred.”

Reese straightened. “Show me.”

The view came up on his phone. He studied it and listened in. Cutter had been playing with great animation and some commentary all morning. But now, as Finch had said, his speech was slurred. He didn’t seem to be able to focus or to shoot accurately. He shook his head repeatedly, as if he was dizzy or confused, but he also rubbed his forehead every time he did so.

He couldn’t seem to remember that shaking his head made it hurt.

“You’re right, Finch. There’s something wrong.”

“He hasn’t been drinking alcohol. Could that sports drink have been drugged?”

Reese thought back. “No. It was sealed in his refrigerator. Has he eaten anything?”

“No, not since he’s been home.”

On the tiny screen, he saw their Number pitch forward and vomited on the floor.

Reese was already moving. “Finch, call an ambulance.” He sprinted across the street, dodging cars, and ran into the building. He skipped the elevators and ran up the fire stairs.

“They’re on their way,” Finch reported before he reached the fourth floor.

John reached Cutter’s door. He paused long enough to pick the lock only because he knew it would be quick, then threw the door open. Cutter was leaning back on the couch. His eyes were open but unfocused. Vomit trickled down his chin. He was panting for air.

Reese grabbed the young man by his shirt and hauled him bodily to the hallway. He dropped him onto the floor. Then he pounded on the nearest neighbor’s door. Before they could answer, he hurried out of sight down the hall.

“Mr. Reese, what’s happening?” Finch worried in his ear.

John turned a corner and peered back. Cutter remained on the floor and didn’t try to go back into his own apartment. The neighbor, an elderly man and his wife, came out and began to fuss over him. The woman went back inside to call for help.

“Carbon monoxide,” Reese reported. He shook his head. “He has a detector in his bedroom, but the battery’s out of it.”

“Deliberately?” Finch asked.

“Probably. It could be an accident.”

“The Machine doesn’t warn us about accidents.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

Reese stayed where he was until the paramedics arrived. Police followed them, and after a quick look around his apartment they called the fire department. They took Cutter out on a stretcher, but John could hear that he was already more alert by then.

The last thing he heard Cutter say was, “Somebody bring my backpack.”

The paramedic snagged it. The laptop was, of course, still inside.

Grumbling, Reese followed them down, then went back across the street.

“Mr. Reese?” Finch prompted.

“We got to him in time,” Reese reported. “He’ll be okay. Have a hell of a headache for a while, though.”

“Video games really are dangerous to your health.”

“Could be.” Reese moved into the crowd that had gathered to watch the firemen. They were running a ladder up to the window of Cutter’s apartment. Only one firefighter went up, and he came down very shortly. He had an armful of twigs, leaves, and other nesting material. “Huh.”

“Something interesting?”

“Looks like a squirrel took up residence in the vent for his furnace,” Reese said. “It might be accidental.”

“The Machine …”

“I know,” Reese said. “So we know it’s not an accident. What we don’t know is who’s been squirreling things away in Mr. Cutter’s vent.”

“Very amusing, Mr. Reese. I’ll see if I can access any surveillance cameras.”

“Guess I’ll take a drive to the hospital.”

“We’ve done entirely too much of that lately,” Finch lamented.

“I agree, Finch.”

 ***


	3. Chapter 3

Lunch in the school cafeteria was every bit as bad as Fusco remembered it being from his own school days. Lee met them at the door and showed them where to get their trays. They had a choice of hot dogs or mac and cheese. He took the noodles; so did Christine. They had no choice about the sides: limp green beans, canned peaches, a small chocolate chip cookie, and a tiny carton of skim milk.

Of the fifty-six kids in Lee’s grade, about fifteen had parents with them. The boy couldn’t seem to decide whether to be embarrassed or delighted.

As they carried their trays to the end of a long table, Fusco heard his son say, “Hey, Marisa, your mom’s not here? You want to come sit with us?”

It sounded a little practiced and forced, but the kid wasn’t bad.

He sat on one side of the table with Lee. Christine sat across from them, and Marisa sat next to her.

It had been four weeks and two days since one of the men who’d been molesting the little girl had been shot dead in front of her. Marisa looked, in Fusco’s eyes, a lot better than she had then. She’d gained some weight, and the dark circles under her eyes were gone. She had a little color in her cheeks. She wasn’t afraid to make eye contact, at least briefly.

She wasn’t afraid to talk.

She didn’t talk about the shooting, of course, or about the men. Instead, she talked about how gross the lunch was and how much she hated green beans. And how she hated her English teacher for giving them so much homework. And how mad she was that they couldn’t go out for recess because it got too cold and too many kids didn’t bring winter coats.

She sat very close to Christine, so that their arms touched.

Every time her words slowed down, the woman fed her another question and she was off again.

Fusco watched the two of them while he ate the paste-like macaroni. He didn’t know exactly what had gone down between them before the shooting in the precinct, but it was obvious that the girl adored Christine and trusted her completely.

Well, the hacker had saved what was left of Marisa’s childhood, and probably her life.

He knew from Lee that Marisa and her mother had been seeing a counselor together. He knew that the girl hadn’t been very upset about the man killed in front of her, but she’d been worried about Christine getting shot. Lionel had talked to the girl, shown her the picture of Christine and him at the hospital, tried to reassure her. But there was nothing that could take the place of sitting right next to her hero.

Scotty didn’t say much, and she didn’t eat much, but she smiled more than Fusco had seen her smile in a long time.

At his side, Lee started to giggle.

“What?” Fusco asked quietly.

“She _never_ talks like this,” Lee whispered. “She’s like the quietest girl in school.”

“Not any more,” Fusco mused. He chuckled a little, too.

 ***

The captain came out of his office and looked toward Fusco’s empty desk. “Where’s he at?” he demanded.

Carter knew where Fusco was, of course. The first rule of asking your partner to cover for you is that you let them know when you need them to cover for you. “He was trying to track down a witness on the Rogers case,” she lied easily.

The captain sighed. “Thought that one was dead in the water.”

“He got a lead. Maybe.”

“Huh.” The man stomped back into his office.

Carter waited until he sat down. Then she pulled out her phone, blocking it from his view, and sent a quick text to Fusco.

The first rule of covering for your partner was telling him what lie you’d told to cover for him.

She smiled tightly. She wouldn’t have thought so at first, but she really liked having a partner. She put her phone away and went back to her case report.

 ***

“Mr. Reese,” Finch called over the earpiece, “how is Mr. Cutter?”

“Still being a pain in the ass,” Reese answered. He was in scrubs again, roaming the Emergency Department at will behind a stolen ID badge. He had the benefit this time of knowing his way around.

He’d stationed himself in the treatment bay across from Cutter’s. From there he could hear the young man complaining – about how roughly they transferred him to the bed, about how many times the nurse checked his blood pressure and asked his name, about how long it took the doctor to get there. About how tight his oxygen mask was. And about how the paramedic who’d wheeled him in had dropped his backpack in the corner. “Be careful with that! My computer’s in there!”

The nurse reported that her patient was still ‘confused and combative’. Reese could have told her that Cutter was always like that, but he stayed out of sight and quiet.

He couldn’t see any way to get at the computer.

The equipment in the ER kept him from communicating with Finch.

“You need to leave that on, sir,” the nurse said patiently.

Cutter’s voice was muffled behind the oxygen mask. “It makes me all sweaty.”

“You have carbon monoxide poisoning. You need the oxygen.”

“When’s the doctor going to get here?”

“He’ll be here soon. He’s been given report on your situation, and he wants you to keep the oxygen mask on …”

“I want to go home.”

“We’re going to keep you a few hours, just to make sure you’re okay.”

“I’m fine. I have a headache. Just get the doctor in here so I can go home.”

“Tell me about your headache,” the nurse said. “Where would you say your pain is, on a scale of one to ten?”

“It’s a ten,” Cutter barked.

“I don’t think it’s a ten …”

“Just like the pain in the ass I’m getting from you! Go get the damn doctor!”

“Sir, I know you’re confused still, but you need to …”

Reese stepped into the bay with them. “You need me to watch him for a few minutes?” he offered.

The nurse looked him up and down. Her eyes lingered just for a second on the ID badge. “You new here?” she asked.

John nodded. “Just on loan from oncology. Heard you might need an extra hand or two.” He shot a quick glance at Cutter.

The woman got it. Sometimes a confused patient needed a calm, soft voice. Sometimes he needed a large man who would calmly not take any shit. She nodded gratefully. “I’ll go find the doctor, see if we can get a mild sedative for him.”

“Mm-hmmm.”

“I don’t want a sedative,” Cutter protested. “I’m not confused. I just want to leave. I feel fine. Did they even lock my door? I better not get home and find my place emptied out.”

The nurse nodded to John and walked out of the bay.

Reese walked around the bed and picked up the backpack.

“What are you doing?” Cutter protested. He lifted the mask. “That’s mine, put that down.”

“Need to borrow your computer for a moment,” Reese answered serenely.

“Screw off. Get your own computer. Put that down.”

“I’m trying to help you.”

“I don’t need your help, you f—“

There was a sharp, soft cracking sound. Cutter convulsed on the bed, then went limp. The lines on the monitor jumped and spiked.

Reese put the tazer back in his pocket, held the bag behind his back and stepped into the hallway. “Nurse! Nurse! I think he’s having a seizure.”

The nurse hurried toward him, a young doctor right behind her. Another nurse came out of a second bay. They rushed to Cutter’s side.

Reese walked down the hall the other way calmly. He found an empty bay, brought out the Number’s computer, and booted it up.

There continued to be scurrying activity around Cutter. After a minute, Reese could hear the young man begin to complain again. He smiled tightly. He wasn’t sure Cutter was a would-be killer, but he did know that the young man was thoroughly unpleasant and rude individual. He didn’t regret tazing him at all.

The computer came up, and Reese slipped his thumb drive into the port. It downloaded, but of course it couldn’t send the data to Finch from here. He glanced at his phone, but there was no signal. Hospitals played hell with their communications.

He wasn’t sure it would do any good, but he stuck a small transceiver onto the bag and uploaded one of Harold’s programs onto the computer.  

When the data was downloaded, Reese shut down the computer and put it back in the bag. He walked down the corridor, dropping the backpack off just outside the now-noisy treatment bay where Cutter was insisting loudly that he hadn’t had a seizure.  

He grinned one more time and kept walking.

***

Fusco’s phone chirped when they were still twenty miuntes from Chaos. He ignored it until they were stopped at a light, then pulled it out and read the text. He smiled and put it away. “Carter,” he told Christine.

“You in trouble?”

“Nah. She covered for me.”

“I really appreciate this, Lionel. It was good to see Marisa again.”

The light changed and he drove through the intersection. “She’s coming out of her shell, isn’t she?”

“In a big way. She … “

There was a sudden and very loud noise in the car. Fusco couldn’t begin to identify it. It rose and fell like a slow siren, but it sounded more like a cross between a high-pitched scream and a wolf howling at the moon. It made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.

It was clearly electronic, not human or animal.

He didn’t know where it was coming from until Christine grabbed her own phone and slapped at it until the noise stopped. “What the hell was that?” he demanded.

“Rally cry,” she answered sharply. She looked around, then pointed. “Pull over there. At the bank.”

“What?”

“There. There.”

She opened the door as he nosed into the curb and was out of the car before it stopped moving. “Here!” she shouted, pointing her phone toward the bank.

“What?” He threw the car into park and followed her.

Alarms went off inside the bank. Christine pushed through the door. By the time Fusco got there, people were pouring out, not just from the bank but from the office building above it. He snagged a man with a bank name tag. “What’s going on?”

“Bomb threat,” the man answered. “We need to evacuate the building, sir.”

Fusco flashed his badge, then gestured to Christine. “She’s with me.”

The man just shrugged and moved away.

The tellers had already locked their drawers and were moving out. Another employee was locking the vault. In thirty seconds, the bank was empty except for the security guard.

Christine stood behind the railing, next to the bank manager’s desk. She gestured with her head to the guard. “He needs to go.”

“Go,” Fusco said. He flashed his badge again.

The guard hesitated, then headed for the door.

“The FBI will be here shortly,” Christine called. “Tell the agent in charge he can come in. Have the rest secure the building.”

“Um … ma’am?” the guard asked uncertainly.

“Not you,” she answered absently. She dropped into the manager’s chair, pressed one button on her phone and set it on the desktop. “Nine,” she announced. “I’m here and clear.”

“Bad Wolf Nine,” the phone answered, in a mechanical voice. “Stand by.”

Fusco shoved the guard out the door and closed it behind him. In the street, hundreds of people evacuated from the building shivered against neighboring buildings. More continued to stream out from the office lobby.

He looked back toward Christine. She was staring at the three monitors on the bank manager’s desk, but they were all blank. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard.

The bank lobby was dead silent.

“What the fuck?” Fusco asked under his breath.

And then the screens lit up.

 ***

Nicholas Donnelly was on the treadmill in the tiny fitness center of the Hunting Wolf Hollow Lodge and Resort, twenty minutes into his workout, when his phone made a noise he’d never heard before. It sounded like a wolf howling, if the wolf had swallowed a fire alarm. It was loud and awful, mechanical, and it sent instinctive shivers down his spine.

Maxwell had been in the dining room, acting like the Assistant General Manager that he sometimes was. He threw the door of the fitness center open while Donnelly was still toweling off. “Den now,” he barked.

Donnelly followed him swiftly down the hallway and through the concealed door to the abandoned water park. “What the hell is that?” he asked.

“Rally cry,” Maxwell answered swiftly. “Bad Wolf.”

Another shiver ran down Donnelly’s spine as they entered the stairwell. “I don’t know what that means.”

Maxwell was trotting down the steps as fast as he could go. It was hard for Donnelly to keep up, with his prosthetic foot, but he did his best. “The Source,” Maxwell answered, “in the case of imminent emergency, can assemble a group of pre-selected programmers – hackers – and task them to address the issue.”

“Who are they?”

“We don’t know. Nobody knows. Except the Source.”

They ran down the hallway and into the Den. The room was louder than Donnelly had ever heard it. The other operators were already there, crowded around the tables in the central hub. They all had headsets on, but none of them were talking. The chatter that filled the room came from the speakers. The big screen was activated, and everyone at the room was staring at it.

“Bad Wolf,” Poole said swiftly. He gestured Donnelly to a chair. “Broadrange Asset Designation. You take Nine.”

“Nine … what?”

“Bad Wolf Nine. Don’t speak unless she speaks to you directly. She probably won’t.”

Donnelly stared at the screen, trying to figure out what was causing all the panic. A map of Manhattan took up the center of the screen. To the left there were several windows of scrolling data. To the right there was another map, tracing four flight paths and trajectories …

He sat up straight. “We’re shooting missiles at _Manhattan_?”

“ _We’re_ not,” Poole snapped. “But somebody is.”

“But those are _our_ missiles,” Maxwell stated. “What … Tomahawks? Cruise? Where did they come from?”

“Launched off a naval ship in Norfolk,” Irini answered. “Launch codes and guidance protocols have been breached.”

“Nuclear?”

“Conventional, thank God.”

“Bunker-busters,” Poole added. “They’ll still make a hell of a mess.”

Four missiles, Donnelly thought. Conventional warheads. Call it one city block each … better than leveling the whole city, yes, but … 9/11 times four, in terms of devastation. Depending on _which_ four city blocks they hit, the casualty county could be …   

“Why not aim them at D.C.?” he wondered aloud.

“We’ll sort that out later,” Poole snapped.

“What do I do now?”

“Just watch. Be ready if they need help. When it’s over, we’ll take this apart, try to find out what happened and why. But for now, it’s in the hands of the hackers.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“If you think He knows how to hack,” Maxwell answered, “get him a keyboard.”

Donnelly sank into the chair. He pulled the keyboard to him, then pushed it away again. There was not a damn thing he could do. Beside him, Irini was literally wringing her hands. He could feel the woman’s impatient frustration. It exactly mirrored his.

Missiles screaming toward Manhattan, and they were sitting in the Den doing nothing.

But the hackers – he listened to the voices. They were overlapping, quick, crisp. But there was as much chatter as jargon. And there was music – fucking _music_ – in the background. Some rock song with a repeating phrase: _Light ‘em up – up – up_. “Jesus Christ,” he murmured again. And then, louder, “How long?”

A countdown clock appeared in the corner of the top screen. Seven minutes, forty-five seconds.

He picked up a headpiece and slipped it over one ear. He raised the mouthpiece so it stayed mute. Then he put his hands down and gripped the front of his chair, hard.

The conversation flew over his head. Donnelly had learned to hack from one of the best, but he could barely keep up with what they were saying, much less comprehend it. The hackers chattered like monkeys on speed. Their voices were calm, cocky, but he understood from their speech patterns that they were scared.

He shivered as the adrenalin response his phone had caused faded. It was deliberate, he knew. That tone, that pitch – it was carefully designed to hype up the response system on the hackers. They _were_ like monkeys on crack, by design. Asena had shot them up when she called them in.

Donnelly looked up at the screens. The center one was the light path of the missiles. The screens on each side were lines of code. They grew and changed at an alarming rate. In the upper screens were transcripts of the Bad Wolf conversations. That would be useful, later, to decipher exactly what had happened. If there were still there.

“We need to lock down the other missiles,” he said aloud.

Poole nodded. “Order’s already out. All ships, all stations. Everything’s locking down.”

“Locking down _electronically_?”

“Fuck,” the director said. He turned away from the screen, keyed a button on a keyboard, and spoke to someone swiftly.

White House? Donnelly wondered. Pentagon? Department of Defense? It didn’t matter.

There was, he realized, much too late for his own comfort, two distinct conversations going on. One was the hackers. The other was the Suits. Bureaucrats, military people, intelligence. They were talking to each other and to themselves. When he concentrated, he determined that the Suits could hear the Hackers, but not the other way around.

The hacker’s didn’t give a rat’s ass what the Suits had to say. They had work to do.

Wolf One said, “Five, you in yet?”

“She’s groveling like a bitch,” Five barked. “Give me a second.”

“You hack like my mother,” Six shot back. She was, unexpectedly, a woman. Donnelly shook his head. The best hacker he’d ever met – with one possible exception – was a woman. He shouldn’t be surprised.

“That’s what she said,” One teased.

_Light ‘em up – up – up._

Nine had not spoken at all.

And then Six said, “Nine? You wanna handle the fighters?”

“You know I do, baby,” she answered.

Donnelly gripped the chair tighter. He knew that voice. Of course he knew that voice. He’d been expecting her.

Christine Fitzgerald was talking in his ear.

He looked up at the camera in the corner and nodded, just once. _Thank you, Asena. Now please let her live._

 ***

One said, “I’m not sure we can crack these guys. They’re good.”

“They’re damn good,” Six agreed. She was the other female voice among the hackers. “They might be better than any of us.”

“Better than any of us,” Christine began.

“But not better than all of us,” the Bad Wolves answered in chorus.

“Let’s crack these bitches,” Five said with what sounded like glee.

 ***

“Oh my God,” Finch said.

“Finch?” Reese answered immediately over the com. “What’s wrong? Is it Cutter?”

Harold shivered. “Mr. Cutter’s peril may be … inconsequential,” he said faintly.

“What?”

Bear crowded against Finch’s legs, anxious. He reached down and gripped the dog’s fur. “They’ve … someone has … there are missiles,” he managed to say. His mouth felt like it was stuffed with cotton.

“Missiles _where_?” Reese demanded. “Finch, what’s going on?”

“There’s been a …security breech.” Finch picked up his tea and made himself take a sip. He swirled it in his mouth enough to make speech possible. He looked towards his screens, but of course they were unchanged. He did not have access, and the Machine was not going to give it to him. He could only listen over Christine’s phone. “An electronic breech. They’ve launched missiles. At the city.”

“At New York?”

“Yes.”

“Can you stop them?”

“No.”

“ _Finch_!”

“There’s a protocol,” Harold said quickly. “There’s a protocol in place. I created it when I … in case there was no advance warning. Christine … and the others …

“Christine?” Reese’s voice was suddenly sharp. “What’s she got to do with it?”

“She’s helping. Her … others … hackers, the best hackers … in case of … I can’t stop this, but there are others …”

“Finch, get out of there.”

“There’s no time.” Harold took a deep breath. He was suddenly calm in the inevitability of the situation. He opened his hand and smoothed Bear’s fur down. He had created a protocol. He had called it Designated Hitters in his mind, but Nathan had dubbed it B.A.D. – the response when things were very, very bad. It wasn’t until later that Bad Wolf had crept into the description, and that had been introduced by the hackers themselves. He hadn’t argued about the names. He didn’t care about them. The Machine had a way to respond; that was the critical thing. It had worked before. It would work now. Or else he would die. He and John and everyone they cared about might die. It would depend on where the missiles hit. But he had done the best he could.

Their motto. _Better than any of us. But not better than all of us._ That had to be true. That _had_ to be true.

It was in the hands of the Machine now, and of the hackers the Machine had designated.

It made perfect sense, of course, that Christine Fitzgerald was one of them.

He hoped to the god of cyberspace that Root wasn’t one of them, too.

He could hear a woman’s voice, but it didn’t sound at all like his former captor’s.

Since there was nothing to be done, he let himself sink into fascination, listening to the process unfold.

“How long?” Reese asked.

“I don’t know,” Finch admitted. “Not long.”

“I’m coming back.”

“There’s no point, Mr. Reese. By the time you get here …” He paused. Either he would be dead, or he would be safe. Nothing his partner could do would make any difference. John might be safe where he was. Moving toward the library might put him in harm’s way – or save his life. There was no way to know.

“I’m coming back. Let me listen.”

Finch considered. He shouldn’t have been able to listen in: the Machine should have cut off all outside contact when it initiated the protocol. It had made an exception for him. He wasn’t sure it would extend that exception to Mr. Reese.

But then, it had made exceptions for John before.

He touched his phone and let Reese listen to what he was hearing.

 ***

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

Three black SUVs pulled up outside the bank, and before the FBI agents had emptied out of them four more showed up. The agents dispersed around the outside of the building, but, as Christine had wished, only the senior agent came in.

Fusco was glad to see Special Agent Moss. He was only vaguely familiar with him, but at least they knew each other in passing. It could make some of the explaining a little easier. Except he still had no idea what he was explaining anyhow.

Moss hurried over to the desk. “What is this?” he demanded.

“Missiles inbound to Manhattan,” Christine snapped without looking at him. Her fingers were flying over the keyboard. The screens in front of her was covered with letters and numbers – gibberish, as far as Fusco could see, but she seemed to know what she was doing.

On the left screen was a map of the Eastern seaboard, with the missiles’ tracks, four of them, marked in bright red.

The senior FBI agent went pale. “Are those nukes?”

“No.”

“Where did they come from?”

“Norfolk.”

“Can we evacuate?”

“No time.”

He took a deep breath. “What do you need me to do?”

The hacker still didn’t look away from the screen. “Find me an empty trash can and put a double liner in it. A bottle of water. And something mint.”

“Okay …”

Moss moved to search the bank.

“What do you need _me_ to do?” Fusco asked.

“Put your hand on my left shoulder.”

He did. “Okay. Now what?”

“Now keep it there.” She glanced back briefly. “There’s this terrified teenager running around in my brain. I need you to hold her hand so she’ll stop screaming and let me work.”

He tightened his grip. Then he shifted around behind her and put his hands on both of her shoulders.

There wasn’t anything else to do.

 ***

In Donnelly’s ear, Christine said, “Flight leader, can you hear me?”

“Loud and clear, ma’am. Over.”

“What’s your name, sweetie?”

“Lieutenant …”

“Nope,” she cut him off. “What’s your momma call you?”

The fighter pilot paused. This was so far off his normal operating procedure, Donnelly knew, that the man needed an extra beat to process. But he had his orders, and they undoubtedly said to do whatever the Bad Wolves said. “Uh … Tommy, ma’am.”

“Oh, nice.” Donnelly could hear the smile in her voice. _Her father’s name._ Christine was absolutely calm, almost playful. The pilot didn’t know her well enough to know that her clipped words meant that it was fake. It was her talk-the-jumper-off-the-ledge speech pattern. Calm and short. The pilot probably didn’t need it. He was a trained professional, after all. She was talking to herself as much as to him. “You can call me Daisy.”

“Yes, ma’am. Daisy.”

“Tommy, listen up. In about one minute, hopefully, we’ll be seizing control of the missiles. When we have them, we’re going to turn them over to you. I need to know as soon as you have visual on them, okay?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Suddenly there was a new voice on the Wolf feed, male and firm. “Bad Wolves, this is the Office of Special Counsel. Given your inability to regain control of the missiles, we ask that the Ellsberg Cascade be disabled.”

There was a moment of silence from the Wolves. Then Seven said, “Fuck off.”

“Not happening,” Six agreed.

Donnelly looked around. The others in the Den were equally startled.

Nine said something quiet. He looked up at the screen. Her words were transcribed as: CLOTHES LINE TO RESEARCH, PLEASE.

_Clothes line?_ Then, quite unexpectedly, Donnelly’s phone rang.

He didn’t know what to do. He was afraid it was Asena. She was normally very discrete, but this was an emergency … which was foolish, because if it was enough of an emergency that she needed to compromise herself to reach him …

He pulled the phone out.

“Speaker,” Pool said.

Donnelly answered it on speaker. “Yes?”

“This is Nine,” Christine said. “Need a favor.”

_Not clothes line. Closed line_. He wished he could laugh.

He couldn’t even speak. The words stuck in his throat.

Because she might die in the next – he checked – four minutes and fifty seconds, and this was his last chance to tell her. That he wasn’t dead. That he wished he’d never left her. But that he’d found the most amazing job, the most worthwhile purpose …

Four minutes plus to blow up her life, and his, before she died …

He kept his mouth shut.

“When the dust settles,” Christine said, “or the smoke clears, whichever, take a long hard look at Special Counsel, see if they might be behind this shit show.”

Donnelly swallowed hard. “Got it,” he managed to say.

“Follow the money.”

Poole leaned over his shoulder. “Teach your grandma to suck eggs, Nine. Go catch our missiles.”

“We’ll get ‘em. Secure them better next time.”

The call went dead.

Donnelly took a deep breath and clicked his phone off.

 ***

Fusco tried to watch everything on the screens. Understanding it, though? That wasn’t happening. He was only half-convinced that Christine understood it. Her fingers never hesitated. He couldn’t believe anyone could type that fast. The one screen that was completely gibberish scrolled like the movie credits of a show that ran late. It took the detective some time to figure out that it wasn’t just her inputting data. All of them – all the other voices – were typing on the same screen. It was all flowing together.

On the other screen, the missiles kept on flying toward Manhattan.

Moss came back. Fusco was only half-aware of him. The agent had already brought the trash can and the bottle of water, which he put on the edge of the desk. The second time he came back with four of those starlight mints. This time he dropped half a pack of DoubleMint gum, a quarter of a roll of Mentos, and a candy cane so old it had yellowed.

“I think that’ll do,” Fusco said quietly.

The agent paused beside him and looked at the screen. “Do you …” Then he stopped. He didn’t want to jostle her elbow, figuratively or actually. He just stood and watched.

One of the voices said, “I’m in!”

Immediately there was a chorus of warnings. “Incoming! All sides!”

“Spikes ahoy!”

“Back blast in three seconds …”

Christine just kept typing.

“I got ‘em!” the first voice said.

The hacker tapped a key. “Tommy, you still with me?”

“I’m here, Ma’am. We have visual contact on the bogeys.”

“Gross.” Her fingers paused. “All right, Tommy. Let’s hope you’re a good son. There’s a very good chance that the fucks who launched the missiles is going to try to take them back on the hand-off. Three, we covered?”

“I am covering you like a horny bull, D.”

“Good. Tommy, just answer yes or no. Do you remember the month and date of your mother’s birthday?”

“I … yes, ma’am.”

“All right. Let’s make this quick, before they crack us and look it up. On five, we’ll turn over control of the missiles to you on four numbers and a letter. Month and day of your mother’s birth and the first letter of your confirmation name. Got it?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Five, ready?”

“Let’s brush these bitches off.”

“Tommy?” She typed in a quick little entry. “Five. Four. Three. Two.” She hit the enter button. “You should have control.”

There was a long moment of silence everywhere.

The pilot said, “I have guidance control.”

There were cheers and whistles and quieter words of relief.

“Then take them out to sea,” Christine said simply, “and drown them.”

Her hands still hovered over the keyboard. Her hands shook. Fusco was pretty sure if he let go of her shoulders, he’d find out his were shaking worse.

One of the louder voices over the speakers said, “That’s several million dollars’ worth of military hardware …”

“It’s several million dollars of blowy-uppy stuff that’s already had its guidance system compromised once today,” the other female hacker snapped back. “You want to take a chance? We’ll try to land it in your back yard.”

There was a pause. “Lieutenant, splash the ordnance.”

“Will do, sir.”

Fusco heard commotion outside the back, crowd noise. He turned to look out the window. People were looking up, pointing. He heard the jets then. Or maybe it was the missiles he heard. He wasn’t sure he’d know the difference. Nobody outside was panicking. They were just looking. Pointing. Like it was some fucking air show.

The noise passed overhead and slowly faded. The evacuated people on the street went back to shivering and complaining.

The red lines on the screen veered to the east.

There was more silence. Fusco could hear the air handlers in the bank. The computer hum. His own blood pounding in his ears.

Then Tommy announced, matter-of-factly, “Splash one. Splash two.”

He splashed the others, too, but it was too noisy over the speakers to hear him.

Christine pushed back from the desk and grabbed the trash can. Fusco was ready; he caught her long hair up in one hand and held it behind her head while she vomited.

 ***

Finch uncoiled his fingers very deliberately. He hadn’t been aware of grabbing the edge of his desk, but his knuckles were white from gripping it so tightly. His hands hurt. He pulled them back and rubbed them gently to bring the circulation back.

His head was light, swimming. He took some deep, deliberate breaths.

It had worked. The protocol had worked precisely as he had designed it to. It had seen the sudden threat and responded to it perfectly. Just as he’d planned. Just as he’d …

“Finch?” Reese said in his ear.

“Mr. Reese. Apparently the crisis has been resolved.”

“Apparently.” He thought that his partner sounded a bit winded, too. “What happens now?”

“Now …” Finch sat back. “Now the system resets to normal parameters. The hackers go on their various ways. The government tries to find out who cracked their launch codes.”

“That’s it?”

“Yes. That’s it.”

Reese gave an exasperated sigh. “You do good work, Finch. But sometimes you lack a flair for the dramatic.”

“I think this particular city has had enough drama for a lifetime, Mr. Reese.”

 ***

It was quiet in the Den. There had been short bursts of noise when the hackers seized control of the missiles, and again when the pilot announced that they were underwater, but mostly there was just quiet relief.

Donnelly was surprised by how loud the computers were.

The big screens at the center of the room flashed and scrolled as the system compiled and filed the data collected. It saved everything, as far as he could tell – voice, electronic, text, video. Then the screen went blue. When it went black again, it read: Normal operating parameters restored.

_Thank you, Asena,_ Donnelly thought. He would have to remember to tell her later, when they were alone: She’d done good. It wouldn’t matter to her, that he said those words. But it would matter to him.

“Alright,” Poole finally said. “Everybody get some coffee and change your delicates if you need to. Then let’s find out who just tried to hit us.”

Donnelly picked up his phone thoughtfully. He’d grown accustomed to his Imaginary Christine. He’d almost forgotten that the real woman existed somewhere out in the real world. It had been a shock to hear Real Christine’s voice in his ear. Shocking, but also wonderful. Like jumping into a cold lake on a really hot day. Emotionally he’d come up gasping for air, but he felt so much better. Refreshed.

He’d gotten to hear her. Gotten to speak to her, though she had certainly not known who he was. Just another government drone on the other end of the phone. But it didn’t matter. He felt cool and invigorated and alive.

And the sons of bitches who had tried to blow up his city? They’d had their asses handed to them by the Bad Wolves. And now Donnelly’s new pack was coming for them.

He grinned, put his phone away, and went to get coffee.

 ***

Fusco gestured with his head toward the water. Moss picked it up and twisted the top off. When Christine sat up, he handed it to her. She took a swig, rinsed her mouth, and spit it in the trash can. Then she took a drink and swallowed.

“Okay,” she finally said.

“Okay what?” Moss asked.

“Okay, I’m ready for a mint.” She glanced over the selection, picked up the candy cane. “What the hell is this?” She put it down, ripped opened the Mentos pack and put both of the remaining candies in her mouth. Then she stood up and scooped the hard candies. “Thanks, Brian.”

The FBI agent was still as white as his dress shirt. Fusco made a mental note to chuckle about that later, when he was sure he wasn’t still fish-belly white himself. “Thanks, Brian,” Moss repeated. “That’s it?”

Christine stood up. Then she grabbed Fusco’s arm. She wasn’t exactly steady on her feet, either. “That’s it.” She gestured to the computer screens behind her. “Nine, out,” she announced. “Later, bitches.”

“Bye, Daisy!”

“Clean getaways, sweetie!”

The screens flickered and then went dark as the computer system rebooted.

“That’s it? All that … missiles and … that’s it?” Moss ran his hand over his face. “What the hell just happened here?”

“Bad Wolf. Rally cry.”

“Rally cry?” he repeated.

“We wanted to call it ‘Super Secret International Hack Squad Assembly’, but it took too long to say.”

He scowled at her. “I don’t even begin to know what kind of report to do on this.”

“There is no report,” Christine said cheerfully. “There was a bomb threat, but no bomb. Nothing to see here. Everyone can come back inside, warm up, get back to work. Back to their lives.”

“But …”

“The incident report will be on your computer by the time you get to it.”

“Are you … how the hell did you do this?”

“I didn’t do anything. Except help back-crack some hackers. Some really good hackers, by the way.”

“But then what …”

She gestured around the empty bank. “You think I have the juice to do this? Clear a building, summon you guys, access the Pentagon, lip off to the Department of Defense?” Christine hesitated. “Well, those last two I kinda do, but that’s not the point. This is was over my head, Brian. And way over yours.”

“But …”

The woman was talking a good game, but Fusco could feel her hand crushing his forearm. “Okay,” he said, “let’s get you some fresh air.”

“You can’t just leave,” Moss protested.

One of his agents opened the bank door and stuck his head inside. “Agent Moss? We’ve, um, we’re received the all-clear?”

The FBI agent looked at Christine again. “How far over my head?”

“Washington. Somewhere. Super-secret. NSA or something else. Some national defense group.”

“You don’t even know who you’re working for?”

“Nope.”

“Sir?” the agent prompted.

Moss’ phone buzzed. He looked at the screen, then back at the woman. Then he turned toward the door. “Let ‘em back in,” he said. And then, quietly, “What the hell?”

Fusco shifted around so Christine could lean on him better. “Hey, Moss? We’re all safe, okay? Try not to think about it too much. About the how. You’ll just give yourself ulcers.” He steered the woman toward the door. The same eager agent looked to Moss for permission, then held it open for them.

He pushed back his jacket to show his badge on his belt. “Get her a blanket for me, will you?”

“Right away.”

“I’m not in shock,” Christine complained as he guided her toward his car.

“Sure you’re not.” He leaned her against the car, flung the blanket over her shoulders. It was navy blue, with a big FBI crest on it. It was way nicer material than the NYPD blankets. “What do we do now?”

Christine brought one of the mints out of her pocket. She tried to unwrap it, but her hands shook too hard; Fusco did it for her, and she sucked on the candy thoughtfully while she looked up at the sky.

It was clear, bright blue. A few puffy clouds.

Colder than it had been _that_ day, though. Fusco could see his breath.

“You should …” she began. She blinked back tears, like they were a surprise to her. “You should go get Lee. Take him out of school, go get dinner or something.”

“Why? Are we still in danger?”

She shook her head. “No. They’ll have everything locked down by now. We’re okay.”

Moss came over to them. He had his phone in his hand still, and he looked more puzzled. “My report is all complete.” He looked up at the skyscraper behind them. “Bomb threat, but no actual explosives. Being classified as a prank, preliminarily, although we’ll look at disgruntled employees. And I’m to stand by for further instructions.” He rolled his eyes. “I still don’t get it.”

Fusco opened the car door.

“Where you going?” Moss demanded. “I have a million questions for you two.”

Christine shrugged. “You know where to find me. I couldn’t answer most of your questions even if I wanted to. You’ll get your ‘further instructions’ at some point. Just go with it.”

“And you’re just going to leave? Just like that? Save the city and drive away?”

“Yeah.” She got in the car.

Fusco closed the door behind her, then leaned closer to Moss. “You want to throw her a ticker-tape parade? You’re going to have to explain to all these people what they’re celebrating. And I don’t think you want to do that.”

“I don’t have to tell you all of this is top secret, right? No talking about it to anyone.”

The detective shrugged. “Not even to her?”

The FBI agent opened his mouth, then closed it. “Tell her not to leave town.”

“Sure.” Fusco walked around and got in the driver’s seat. He looked at Christine. She was still awfully pale. “Where to?”

“You should go get Lee.”

“I’ll get him after school. You said we’re safe, there’s no point in scaring him half to death. And I, uh …” He glanced at himself in the rearview mirror. He was as pale as he’d suspected. A little green at the gills. “I need a few minutes.”

“Then … could we go to the Memorial?”

He didn’t have to ask _which_ memorial. “Yeah. But how come?”

Christine pulled the blanket closer around her. “So I can be sure it’s still there.”

 ***

Finch put his overcoat on. Then he paused and considered.

_Compiling_ , he thought. There came a time in the development of every program when he needed to stop tweaking the code and just let it run. To take his fingers off the keyboard and let the process complete – or fail – on its own.

He’d been trying to put Christine Fitzgerald and John Reese together since he’d re-discovered the woman in her cyber café. It had been a maddeningly slow process. He’d had to take great care that neither of his notably hard-headed friends became aware of his intentions. A word here, a meeting there, an errand, a request. It had been a delicate process. And he had had doubts all along that it would succeed. Still, he patiently put the pieces in place.

It had, in the end, lacked a catalyst.

As unfortunate and terrifying as it had been, Christine’s shooting and subsequent near-death experience had prompted the recognition Finch had been trying to lead them to.

Reese had stayed with the woman for two nights after she’d left the hospital. Two. One, Finch would have attributed to the former operative’s stubborn insistence. But the fact that Christine had let him stay on a second night – that was the tell. The clear signal that something had changed between them.

_Finally._

In the four weeks since, Reese had spent more time at Chaos than he had at the library.

Part of that was by Harold’s design. Once he was aware of the relationship shift, Finch had done everything he could – without being noticed – to free up his friend’s time. Some was Reese’s own idea. He had been overtly solicitous, attentive to the wounded woman’s every need. And she had let him stay.

_Compiling_ , Finch thought again, with great satisfaction. And the time was very near when he would see if the program had run as it should, if the outcome was what he’d expected. Hoped for.

Finch wanted desperately to speak with the woman. He’d been aware that there had been B.A.D. activations before, but he’d never been privileged to listen in on one. He wanted to know everything that had happened – what she’d seen, what she’d heard, what she’d done. How she’d been recruited in the first place, and how she was kept updated. He has tasked the Machine with doing it, but he hadn’t told it how. He’d trusted his code. He’d been right. But he was wildly curious about the details.

But they were _compiling_ , and this was too rich an opportunity to ignore. To put Christine in John’s arms when she was frightened and vulnerable… 

He took off his coat and hung it back on the rack. Then he keyed his phone.

“Yes, Finch?”

“Mr. Cutter is being admitted for observation and further testing. They seem to think he’s suffered a seizure of some kind.”

“Imagine that.”

“Since he will be well-supervised – and with the current flu epidemic, his visitors will be limited to immediately family – would it be possible for you to retrieve Miss Fitzgerald? I would very much like to talk with her about the alert. But there is a high probability that the FBI will be trying to keep her under surveillance …”

“I’ll go get her, Finch.”

“Thank you, Mr. Reese.”

Harold sat down. The corners of his mouth twisted up, half smile and half smirk. As he’d expected, John had not put up even a token argument.

_Compiling_ , he thought one more time, and from the look of it, the process had nearly reached its conclusion.

He nodded in satisfaction. Then he reached for his keyboard.

 ***

Donnelly stood up. He meant to go up to his room and change out of his workout clothes. But he stared at the now-blank screen thoughtfully. “Why New York?” he muttered.

“What?” Maxwell asked.

“They launched the missiles from Norfolk,” he said slowly. “If they’d aimed them at D.C., we wouldn’t have had time to stop them. No time even to call in the Wolves, let alone time for them to be effective.”

“We got lucky,” Irini said.

“Fortune favors the prepared,” Poole said. “But you’re right. Why not D.C.?”

“The president’s out of the country,” Northrup reminded them.

“And New York is the wounded heart of the nation,” Donnelly added. “But that feels too … sentimental. For people who set out to destroy a city.”

“What are you thinking?” Poole pushed.

“I don’t know. It just doesn’t …” Donnelly made a face. “Maybe because they’re in D.C. and they didn’t want to put themselves at risk?”

“Possible.”

“And if that’s true … then maybe Nine was right. Maybe we need to look at OSC.”

Poole nodded. “Do it. But, uh, get some real clothes on first.”

Donnelly looked down at his t-shirt and sweat pants. “You said there was no dress code.”

“Yeah. I didn’t mean it.”

 ***

They stood together, Fitzgerald and Fusco, holding the railing, looking out over the fountains.

“Still here,” Fusco said.

“Yeah.”

“You okay?”

“Yeah.”

He looked over at her. He remembered it like it was yesterday. Standing outside the chain-link fence, keeping the onlookers away. Chrissy had been bone-skinny, pale. Sad. But clean, clear-eyed, for the first time in years. A bag of water bottles over her shoulder and rolls of silver duct tape up her arm like bangle bracelets. The dust and the smoke in the air, and the smell. Fire trucks and ambulances, because they still thought they were going to find survivors in the pile.

It was all bright and tidy now. Shiny. People walking around without paying attention to where they were. Talking on their cell phones. Arguing. Kissing.

It had been five minutes from being a smoking crater again. But no one here knew that. No one but him, and her.

Christine was smiling, calm. But she still had the FBI blanket wrapped around her shoulders, over her jacket. He didn’t blame her a bit.

“Yeah,” she said again, and in that one word she said she knew exactly what he was thinking. She took his hand.

A guy walked over to them, a vendor in white with a long apron. He had a carrier in his hand, with two cups on it. “You Fusco?” he asked.

“Yeah,” the detective answered warily.

“This is for you.” He handed him one of the cups. He gave the other cup to Christine, but looked back at Fusco. “Mr. Burdett says you’re supposed to make sure she drinks it all.”

“Okay.”

Fusco reached for his wallet, but the man waved him off, smiling. “It’s been taken care of. Believe me.”

He walked away. Fusco sipped his beverage. Coffee, hot, black and strong. It was good.

Christine took one sip from her cup and then turned her head and spit it out.

“What?” he asked.

“I think it’s supposed to be tea. Maybe. It tastes like syrup.”

Fusco’s phone rang. He clicked it on speaker without even looking at it.

“Drink the tea, Miss Fitzgerald,” Finch said firmly.

“I don’t want tea, and this has like five sugars in it.”

“Six,” the genius answered, “and a pinch of salt. Drink it. It will help with the shock.”

“I’m not in shock.”

“You’re not giving up the blanket, I notice.”

“I’m never giving up the blanket. I scrumped it fair and square. I’m adding it to my collection.”

“You have a collection?” Fusco asked.

“Comforting textiles procured from federal agencies.”

“Drink your tea,” Finch insisted over the phone.

“Yuck.” She took a sip, made a face, sipped a little more. “Can we talk? Can I come talk to you? I have so much I want to talk about.”

“Of course.” Fusco could hear the smile in the genius’ voice. “Mr. Reese is on his way to pick you up. And I’ll make you a better cup of tea when you get here.”

“I am capable of hailing a cab, you know.”

Fusco raised an eyebrow. It was good to hear her talk that way again. It meant she was getting back to her old self. Her old difficult self.

“There’s some chance that Agent Moss has decided to follow you,” Finch answered calmly. “It’s better to take every precaution.”

She sighed, mildly aggravated. “As you wish.”

“I’ll see you soon.” The call went dead.

Christine looked at him. “Drink your tea,” Fusco said.

She took one more sip. Then she took the lid off and poured the rest into the gutter.

Fusco shook his head, but he grinned at the same time. “I missed you, kid.”

 ***

 

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

In his hotel room/apartment, Nicholas Donnelly turned on his laptop. While it booted, he went to the bathroom and washed his face, then changed into work clothes – khakis and a polo shirt. His days of wearing a suit to the office were long gone. By then the computer was awake.

“Asena?” he called softly. “You here?”

WE WATCH. AND WE ARE ALWAYS THERE.

Donnelly sat down in front of the computer. “Do you know who tried to hit New York?”

Y/N: N

“Are there more attacks on the way?”

REGARDLESS OF YOUR FAITH, YOU CAN NEVER ESCAPE UNCERTAINTY.

It wasn’t the time for literary quotes, Donnelly thought impatiently, but he didn’t tell her that. She might stop talking altogether. “You don’t know if there will be another attack?”

Y/N: N

“But you’re not aware of any.”

Y/N: N

“But you weren’t aware of this one, either, were you?”

Y/N: N

He nodded to himself. “This thing you did, the rally call. Your Bad Wolves. That was impressive. You did well.”

I AM THE BAD WOLF. I CREATE MYSELF. I TAKE THE WORDS ... I SCATTER THEM IN TIME AND SPACE. A MESSAGE, TO LEAD MYSELF HERE. I WANT YOU SAFE, MY DOCTOR. 

“Doctor Who?” Donnelly guessed.

Y/N: Y

“I’m going to have to watch that whole show just so we have something to talk about, aren’t I?”

Y/N: Y

“You kept us safe today, Asena. Thank you.”

The computer did not answer. Donnelly had the sense that she was embarrassed by his thanks. But that was just him, reading his own emotions into the computer’s silence. He did that a lot lately. Anthropomorphized her – it. Partly it was because of his own loneliness, his need for a friend. Partly it was because if he didn’t pretend she was a person, the enormity of what she really was would be overwhelming and terrifying.

He hadn’t asked a question, so she hadn’t answered. It was that simple.

Perhaps.

“I have to get back,” he said. “You’ll keep looking, right?”

Y/N: Y

He realized it had been a stupid question. Of course Asena would keep looking. Looking was what Asena did. “You can … call me or whatever, right? I’ll come back up and see what you need.”

Y/N: Y

Donnelly stood up. He felt awkward, somehow, leaving her alone. As if, after the day’s excitement, she might need company. Someone to talk to. Which was ridiculous. Anthropomorphizing again. And still, he said, “I’ll be back when I can.”

He lowered the lid of the laptop, but didn’t close it all the way.

 ***

Reese stole a car a few blocks from the hospital and headed for Ground Zero. Finch had assured him that Christine was safe and with Fusco, so he didn’t break many traffic laws. He knew Finch was very eager to talk to her. He wanted to get eyes on her himself. But there wasn’t any break-neck urgency.

It was funny, he thought as he drove. There was no great urgency, and there was also no flutter in his stomach. When he’d first fallen in love with Jessica, he used to get butterflies whenever he was on his way to see her. It was distinctly un-Ranger-like and he would never have admitted it to anyone, but he’d gotten a warm sense of anticipation in the pit of his stomach. It was somewhere between the clench of anticipation right before a mission and the beginning of sexual arousal. It had been pleasant. He missed it. And he wondered why he didn’t feel it any more.

Of course, he was a different man than he’d been then. Older, sadder, much more deeply scared. Darker. Maybe the flutter was a young man’s thing.

Except – he’d gotten that same feeling, or at least a soft reflection of it, a couple times when he’d been on his way to meet Zoe Morgan.

Zoe was his friend, but on those occasions it had been pretty much completely sexual. Sex was easy for John Reese. Relationships were much harder. Perhaps that was enough to explain the lack of flutter.

Or maybe, he thought, it was just that he needed to end things definitively with Zoe before he could move on. She didn’t have any expectations, of course. They weren’t exclusive. It was a strictly friends-with-benefits arrangement. But maybe that entanglement, however informal, was holding him back.

It was worth a thought.

He didn’t have any trouble finding them at the memorial. Fusco was Fusco, after all, not tall but very square. Christine was wrapped in a navy blue blanket with the FBI crest on it. It looked like they were laughing. Fusco saw him first. He hugged the woman for a long moment, then walked her to the car.

“Go get your boy,” Christine said.

“I will, I will.”

“Thanks for your help.”

The detective smirked. “Like I did anything. Take care.” He shut the door, nodded to Reese. “See you around.”

Reese drove off before the detective could ask where he got the car. “You okay?” he asked Christine.

“Fine,” she answered cheerfully. “Good.”

_Wounded introverts retreat_ , Reese thought. _So what the hell is this?_ Maybe the prospect of having the city destroyed around her – again – hadn’t caused any wound.

He glanced at her legs. She was bouncing her heels lightly against the floor, so her knees rose and fell as if she was running in place. She wasn’t as calm as she wanted to pretend.

He was glad she was there with him. He wanted to watch her for a while. He was concerned, and happy to be close. But the flutter still wasn’t there.

He drove, keeping an eye out for a tail. He didn’t see one. He took the scenic route anyhow.

Christine looked out her window and giggled.

“What?”

“Those people,” she said, pointing. “All those people. They’re not dead.”

He glanced over at her. Her feet were still bouncing. Her hands were moving, too. Like a hummingbird, she couldn’t seem to settle. “Uh-huh,” he answered carefully.

“I mean, they don’t even know they’re not dead. But they’re not dead.”

“Right.” He turned right at the next corner, detouring again from the general direction of the library.

“You see something?” Christine asked.

“No.” He glanced in the rearview mirror. “Just being careful.”

“Can we stop for cigarettes?”

“No. You stopped smoking.”

“I did? When?”

“A month ago, when Ingram had to stab you with a meat thermometer so you could breathe.”

“That had nothing to do with smoking.”

Reese shrugged, ready for an argument. He didn’t get it.

“Can we stop for pixie sticks, then?”

He glanced over at her. She was still bouncing gently in her seat. “Pixie sticks?”

“The big ones.” She threw her hands wide to demonstrate. “Pure sugar and food coloring.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“You never let me have any fun.” She looked out the window again. She still didn’t argue.

They passed a group on a corner, maybe twenty high-school aged kids gathered around a teacher who was speaking and pointing to buildings.

Christine giggled again.

_They don’t even know they’re not dead_ , Reese thought. Those kids were standing there, half-bored, safe, because of Christine, and because of Harold and his Machine. _They don’t even know. But I do._

He chuckled to himself, checked the mirror one more time, and turned back toward the library.  

  ***

Carter tensed when she saw the captain come out of his office. She flicked her eyes toward Fusco’s desk without raising her head. He still wasn’t back – damn it. A long lunch was one thing. Being gone all afternoon was another. He could have at least called in.

The captain stopped beside her desk. “Carter.”

She had to look up then. “Sir?”

“Fusco’s not coming back this afternoon. Got an e-mail from the FBI, something about a bomb scare he was helping with.”

Joss frowned at him. “I didn’t hear anything about it.”

He shrugged, unconcerned. “Not our precinct. False alarm, anyhow, but he was on the scene and they tasked him to help with the follow-up.”

“Thanks for letting me know.”

He grunted and walked away.

As soon as he was gone, Carter stood up and took her cell phone into the interrogation room. “Damn it, Fusco,” she barked quietly before he could even speak, “what the hell did you get into this time?”

Fusco chuckled. “It wasn’t my idea, I promise.”

“Let me guess,” she said, making a face.

“Yeah, no. It wasn’t our disruptive friends, either. I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow. Right now I’m going to pick up my kid from school.”

“So you weren’t tasked by the FBI for follow-up, either.”

“Where’d you hear that?”

“From the captain.”

“Huh,” Fusco answered. “Okay, that part might have been our friends. Or not. I did see Moss at the scene. I dunno.”

“Was there really a bomb threat?”

“Yeah. Sorta.”

Carter considered. “But everything’s okay now?”

“Everything’s fine,” Fusco promised. “Just, uh … when you get home tonight, give your son a big hug and an extra kiss.”

“How come?”

“Because you came real close to not getting another chance. We all did.”

“Fusco … “

“I’ll tell you tomorrow,” he promised again. “Everything’s fine for now. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Don’t you dare …” Carter glared at the phone in her hand, because her partner had already hung up on her.

She stomped back to her desk. For a moment, she toyed with the idea of calling Reese and demanding to know what was going on. But it sounded like she’d missed it already. Whatever it was.

She should probably be happy about that.

She let out a long slow breath, tried to shake off her aggravation, and went back to work.

Then she paused, picked up her phone, and typed in a text to her son.

_Just wanted to let you know I love you and I’m proud of you. Mom_

When it was sent, she could concentrate on reports again.

 ***

Teddy Edwins stood across the street from the apartment building, watching as the firemen packed up their gear. There was one squad car there; the cop leaned against the hood, watching for traffic that needed directing. Bored. His partner was inside the squad, napping. He didn’t recognize either of them.

Edwins took his hand out of his pockets and walked over to him. The cop glanced at him, at his empty hands and his calm demeanor. “Help you, sir?”

“Just wondering what happened here. Anything I need to worry about?”

The officer shook his head. “Squirrel nest in a heater vent. No big deal.”

“Everyone okay?”

“Some kid got a head full of carbon monoxide, but he’ll be okay.”

“Good, good.”

The cop shook his head. “These old buildings, furnace in each apartment. Stupid idea.”

“That’s not up to code, is it?”

“Grandfathered in.” He made a little gesture, rubbed his thumb against his fingertips. The international signal for cash; someone got paid off. “They checked all the other units. No problem. So no, nothing to worry about. You live here?”

“Couple blocks over. Just going out to the store and saw the lights.”

“Nothing to see here.” The cop waved as the last firemen got in their truck. “Take care.”

“Thanks.”

Edwins moved back out of the way. The emergency vehicles left. He stood and looked up toward the windows of the building. The bare branches of the big tree nearly touched the building there. Squirrels. It was possible.

He stuck his hands back in his pockets and walked back to his car.

 ***

Donnelly walked down the steps to the Den slowly. Something was tickling at the back of his brain. Instinct, or just something that he’d meant to remember. He couldn’t catch it.

The rest of the team was still in the kitchen. It was odd, perhaps a throw-back to all of their earliest days – homework at the kitchen table. But the kitchen was where they went to talk together.

They were in the middle of a conversation about the Office of Special Counsel and how to get a look at their financial transactions. It was difficult, because OSC had a slush fund and a hefty level of immunity from oversight. But it wasn’t impossible. Especially for the Den.

He remembered then what he’d wanted to ask about. But before he could speak, Maxwell said, “It’s kind of a long way to go to get the Cascade down, isn’t it?”

 Poole shrugged. “Nine thinks there’s a government conspiracy behind everything.”

“Well, take a look around,” Irini suggested. “She’s not wrong.”

“If they want the Cascade down,” Northrup offered, “then the bigger question is, what are they planning next?”

“If they were planning anything more,” Aguilar said, “the Source would know about it.”

“The Source didn’t know about the missiles,” Donnelly offered.

Poole glanced at him. “Which means that they knew exactly how to get under her,” he sighed. “It would have had to all be planned without electronics. No phones, no e-mails, no bank transfers … face to face and hand-written until the moment it was executed.”

“If they knew what they had to do to get around her,” Irini said, “they had to know she exists.”

“No one but us knows it exists,” Poole snapped. “And even we don’t know exactly what it is.”

_I do_ , Donnelly thought, with some wonder. _I know what she is, because she told me. And I know who built her. And where to find him. And if someone else knows, too, maybe that’s why they aimed at New York: To kill the Admin. But if they knew what she was and who her Admin was, they had to know, too, that she’d do anything in her power to protect him. The minute they’d activated the missiles, they had to know she would respond._ “If they’d aimed for D.C. instead of New York,” he said aloud.

“We wouldn’t have had time to respond,” Maxwell finished. “We’ve been over that.”

“Maybe they _wanted_ us to respond,” Donnelly rejoined. “Maybe they wanted to see what the response would be.”

“What our defenses are,” Aguilar said. “That would make sense.”

Poole straightened up. “They’ve guessed what she is. They want to know how she’s defended.” He nodded. “That could be it.”

“One of the privacy groups?” Maxwell guessed. “Vigilance? FreeSpeech? Snowden fangirls? Anonymous?”

“Any of them.” Poole shook his head. ”This exercise wouldn’t have given them the answers they want, though.”

Donnelly picked up his cup, turned it around, set it down. “You said that no one knows who the Bad Wolves are. That the Source picks them.”

“Yes.”

“But you also know that Nine thinks there are government conspiracies everywhere. You know who she is.”

There were uneasy looks around the table. “We know some of them,” Maxwell finally said. “From investigations, other places – we’re not supposed to, but some of them, yeah.”

Donnelly nodded. “If they knew about the Wolves, or they guessed about them, they wouldn’t be hard to identify.”

“How do you figure?”

“There’s a hacker on every corner in every city. But elite hackers? This level? They’re rare. Call it, I don’t know, a dozen in Greater New York?”

Poole leaned forward. “So?”

“So if you wanted to know who protects the Source, how it protects itself – you could cover all of them and then start a crisis.”

“Start a fire,” Maxwell said, “and see where they run to save the silver.”

There was silence around the table.

“Do you think the Wolves are in danger?” Donnelly finally asked. He hated the idea of putting Christine under surveillance, or in protective custody – and she would hate it more – but it beat letting these unknown killers have a free shot at her.

Poole shook his head. “If they were, the Source would tell us about it.”

Further silence. The Source hadn’t known about the missile breach until they were already in the air.

“If we call for protection for them,” Irini offered, “we reveal their identities to OSC and everyone else.”

“If we don’t,” Donnelly argued, “we leave them vulnerable to whoever just tried to blow up the city.” He felt sick. _Christine._

“It’s not the hackers,” Aguilar said suddenly. “They change all the time. Different ones for every rally call. They don’t have access except during a call. They don’t know how to contact the Source. Or us. Or each other. They do what they’re told and then they’re cut off again. If these guys know who they are, how they work – they know getting to the Bad Wolves won’t do them any good. They’re just … well, tools.”

“So what are they after?” Irini wondered.

The man shook his head. “I don’t know. Like he said,” he gestured to Donnelly, “maybe they want to know how we respond. They’re testing the defenses.”

“Which means that they have something bigger in mind,” Donnelly said.

Silence fell for a third time.

“We don’t know all of them,” the director finally said, “but the ones we know, let’s see if we can get a fix on where they answered the call. See if we can spot any surveillance. Maybe that will give us an idea who we’re up against.”

He stood up. The others did, too. Some went for more coffee; others headed to their cubicles. Donnelly stayed where he was until he was alone in the kitchen. Then he glanced toward the surveillance camera in the corner of the ceiling. “Is she safe?” he whispered.

The red light on the camera blinked off once, then came back on.

He nodded. “Thank you.”

Donnelly walked to Poole’s office and stopped in the doorway. “Director? What’s the Cascade?”

Poole shook his head. “You’re not going to like the answer.”

“The only thing I’ve liked so far today was my workout, and I didn’t get to finish that.”

The director gestured to a chair. “Sit down, then, and get comfortable.”

 ***

Christine ran up the library stairs with her shoes in her hand and her stolen blanket flying behind her like a cape. Reese followed her more slowly. By the time he got to the hallway, she was just leaving Finch’s embrace. She dropped to the floor to hug Bear. The dog’s greeting was enthusiastic. So was hers.

“Did you see?” she asked Finch as she popped to her feet. “Have you heard it before? The Bad Wolves? The rally call? It was amazing. It is _so_ amazing.”

“Rally call. Is that what they call it? I heard,” Finch assured her. “I’d like to hear more. You’ve been called in before?”

“Twice, before this. In the past two years. There were other calls I heard about, but I wasn’t in on them.”

“How were you initially contacted?”

“You don’t know?”

“I told the Machine to develop a protocol and execute it. I didn’t give it specifics.”

“You just … really? Wow. I was contacted initially by a hacker I know personally. And then I received a follow-up from a … what I thought was a government group, but even then I wasn’t sure it wasn’t … electronically generated. That was before I knew. Before I knew I knew. You know?”

“Yes, yes. And then were you asked to contact someone in turn?”

“Yes. Later. Just one. So of the Wolves, I know of three for sure, the two I spoke to and me, but I kinda know who some of the others are, by reputation or by voice or by style …”

“And the assignments are generated based on those strengths?”

“Yes, definitely. Absolutely. That must be just a king-hell algorithm …” She took a deep breath. “Who were those guys? Who launched the missiles? Do you know? Do _they_ know?”

“I don’t know,” Finch answered, “and neither do the authorities, yet. But I’ve … got my ear on activities. Believe me, every available asset of the United States government is searching for the people who did this.”

She rocked back on her heels. “And everything’s locked down? Locked up? Whatever?”

“It is. And you can be assured that the Machine is now sharply focused on this matter. However well they concealed their intent prior to the attack, it’s aware of them now.”

Christine nodded, reassured, but still agitated. “How in the world did you –” She stopped abruptly. “Sorry.”

Reese watched closely. Generally such a direct question would have caused Finch to shut down. But this time, though he shook his head, he gave his apprentice a little smile. “Trust that the Machine will identify them and stop any further attacks.” He put his hand lightly on her shoulder. “You and the other hackers gave it the time it needed. And it will call you again if it needs you. But unless it does, try to be calm. You are quite safe now.”

She leaned, and Harold wrapped his arms around her.

In this, Reese knew, Finch could comfort her in a way he could not. Present and physical threats, personal threats, were his domain; potential mass-casualty events were his partner’s. She believed him implicitly.

Then Harold stepped back and gently changed the subject. “Tell me again. About the government contact you received. What did they say? How did they convince you?”

Reese walked to the little kitchen area. He listened to them talk – Christine too quickly, Finch more animated than he’d been in a long time. They got into the weeds of the program and its implementation. In the time it took him to make himself a cup of coffee, they might as well have been speaking a different language. They talked over each other, finishing each other’s sentences, sometimes each other’s thoughts. He made tea for Finch and soup for Christine. When he went back to the main room they were standing exactly where he’d left them, face to face, inches apart, still talking a mile a minute.

“Soup,” he said, handing the woman a mug. “Tea.” He gave a mug to Finch. He went back for his coffee.

“I don’t want soup,” Christine said.

“I don’t care.” Reese moved to the board.

“You should drink it,” Finch said. “It will help.”

“Help what? I’m fine.”

“You’re a bit … agitated.”

She smirked at him, then at Reese. Then she let it go and sipped the chicken broth.

“Better than pixie sticks,” he said.

“Not better than cigarettes, though.”

“You should really stop smoking, you know,” Finch said. “Your lungs have already been compromised by exposure to …”

“Random.”

“She already stopped,” Reese said calmly. He turned away from the board and looked at them. “What’s the Ellsberg Cascade?”

They looked at each other. It wasn’t a guilty look, exactly. More of a shared secret look. Finch shrugged, just a little. Christine took another sip of her soup. “Daniel Ellsberg,” she finally said. “Patriot or traitor?”

John frowned at her. “The Cascade is related to the Pentagon Papers?”

“Just answer the question.”

He considered. Ellsberg had leaked top secret information. It had led to the end of the Vietnam War, and likely saved the lived of thousands of soldiers. But he’d betrayed an oath. John knew that his father had considered him the worst of traitors. Personally, he wasn’t so sure. “Both, I suppose. I never gave it much thought, honestly.”

“And Snowden?”

“Are you evading the question?”

“I was trying to, yeah.” Christine dropped onto the couch. “Do you know there are weaponized drones in the U.S.?”

“Surveillance drones,” John corrected.

“ _Weaponized_ drones,” she repeated.

Smokey, her cat, who had for all practical purposes become Finch’s cat, the library’s mouser-in-residence, jumped up on the back of the couch and then climbed down to her lap. Bear put his chin on her knee to get his share of the petting.

Reese looked at her for a long moment. He hadn’t known, specifically. But he had no reason to doubt what she said. He glanced at Finch. The genius watched without comment. Without argument. “In case of invasion?”

“Or civil insurrection. Or whatever. Just in case.”

John closed his eyes briefly. Oh, yes, he believed it. He just didn’t like it. He _really_ didn’t like it. “Go on.”

“There was significant dispute about the program, in the government, in the military, and in the intelligence community. Dispute at the very top levels.”

“Are you still evading the question?”

Christine shook her head. “No. This is background. There were major fights about it. Very quiet fights, obviously, but serious and protracted and passionate. In the end, the hawks that wanted the drones got them, but the doves won a concession. Like the nuclear arms, the drone launch codes require separate authorizations. Three, actually. Three different high-ranking people have to specifically authorize any drone strike in the continental U.S.”

Reese glanced toward Finch. His partner was back behind his desk. He was listening, but he was also typing. He already knew everything Christine was about to say.

Which meant that it was true. “Go on.”

Christine rubbed the cat’s ears until Smokey bit her gently. “Control measures can be removed, as you know. Restraints can be circumvented. So once the dust settled and the program was in place, the doves decided they wanted some insurance. Some outside means of stopping a drone strike. A group of them got together secretly and went looking for a civilian who could install a kill switch on the whole thing.”

Reese whistled. “And they found you.”

“Not me, baby. They already had a hacker in custody. His virtual name is Hoo-Doo, and he’s brilliant.”

Finch snorted in derision.

“But not brilliant enough not to get caught,” Reese observed, “if he was already in custody.”

“He murdered his ex-girlfriend and her family with an ax,” Finch said drily.

“You knew him?” John asked Christine.

“We used to run the net together. I never met him IRL. In real life.”

“I’ll be grateful for small favors. So they asked this murderer to write them a kill switch.”

“Which he did. A damn clever one. Well-concealed. Within twenty-four hours it has been discovered and disabled, and Hoo-Doo had lost all his extra privileges.”

“The Machine?” Reese guessed.

Christine nodded. “We already guessed that something existed, somewhere, but that was the first time we’d actually run up against it. We didn’t know exactly what it was, or who built it, of course.” She stood up, holding the cat. She adjusted the blanket so it stayed draped over her shoulders. “They found another hacker. They gave him the same task. They got the same result. This one took a little longer to be discovered. They managed to get him out of the country.”

“The Machine saw it as a direct threat to national security.”

“And responded accordingly,” Finch said.

She moved over to the cracked board and looked at the pictures. “I know this guy,” she said, pointing to one of the security guards. “He’s a cop.”

“He was,” Finch agreed. “He took medical retirement last year following a car accident. Do you know him well?”

“No. I met him a couple times. Enough to say hello. Teddy or Eddy, something like that.”

“Edward Edwins.”

“I think his partner got killed,” she said slowly. “Young guy. It might not have been him, though. I don’t remember.”

“Carter would know,” Reese said. “I’ll ask her. After you finish telling me about the Cascade. How did you end up with it?”

She made a little face. “By the time they came to me, we – the community -- had an idea what we were up against. Not the specifics, but a pretty good idea of the outline. And I guessed that whatever it was saw the kill switch idea as unallowable interference, as you said.”

“So you found a better way to shut it down.”

“I knew that wouldn’t work. So I thought about the most secure program I’d ever encountered. The best engineer I’d ever hacked.” Christine moved around the desk and put her hand lightly on Harold’s shoulder. He looked up at her fondly. “He was all about thresholds. Not absolutes, but levels. This much causes a response; this much doesn’t.” Smokey squirmed, and she dropped the cat onto the desk. “A kill switch clearly provoked a reaction. So I took my best guess where the threshold was, and I wrote a program that was below it.”

“How does it work?”

“It doesn’t stop the drones. The Cascade doesn’t interfere their drone capabilities in any way. They can still strike anyone they like, for any reason. But it requires three authorization codes, irrevocably. And the minute there’s a strike, the names of the people who enter the authorizing codes are released.”

“Released to whom?”

“Everyone,” Finch said warmly.

Reese raised an eyebrow. “Everyone?”

“Major press outlets first,” Christine confirmed. “Broadcast and cable news, all the big newspapers, radio bureaus. National and international.”

He waited.

“And then each of those contacts propagates to smaller outlets. On-line news, big boards, major blogs. And then to all of their followers. To smaller blogs, to chat groups, to newsletters. And so on. Until it’s on the PTA’s home page and the local restaurant’s on-line menu and every smart phone in the country.”

Reese whistled softly. “And they can’t stop it.”

She shook her head. He looked to Finch. The genius hitched his shoulders slightly.

“They can launch an attack,” Christine said. “But they can’t escape the responsibility for it. And everyone with a launch code knows it.”

John took a slow stroll of his own around the library. It was brilliant, of course. The Machine wouldn’t consider it a threat to national security, so it didn’t respond to it. And that was, he realized, an assessment he agreed with. If the bureaucrats believed the threat was serious enough to warrant a drone strike, then let them defend it afterward. But to convince three different high-ranking officials to put their careers irrevocably on the line ... it was brilliant, yes.

It was also wildly dangerous. “If you grab the government by the balls,” Reese said bluntly, “they won’t hesitate to cut your hand off.”

“I know.”

“That doesn’t worry you?”

“There are three things stopping them. One, they’re not sure it’s _my_ hand. There are a dozen or more known hackers who may or may not be involved. They’re not sure who actually has control, or if more than one of us does. Two, they’re not sure we don’t have a live grenade in the other hand.”

“A dead-man’s switch.”

She nodded. “And third – remember, half of them support the idea. Not all of them have been open about it, but they’re there. A lot of them.”

He looked at Finch again. Back when they’d first met Christine, she’d been certain that the FBI couldn’t touch her. Finch had known why almost right away. He hadn’t seen the need to share the details with Reese – even though what she’d done had clearly put Christine in at least some degree of danger. Finch and his secrets. This one might have been important. It might still be.

He stalked around the room again.

“They protect her,” Finch said quietly.

Reese glared at him.

“Agent Donnelly wanted to arrest her,” the recluse went on. “Remember? He got his hand slapped, directly from Washington. Whether they fear or revere her, the government has a decided interest in protecting Miss Fitzgerald.”

“I’ve seen people _protected_ by the government before, Finch. Some of them ended up dead.”

“I didn’t ask his permission, John,” Christine said, very gently. “Or yours.”

“Christine.”

“It had to be done. And I was the one who could do it.”

Her words twisted around in his chest. There wasn’t any bravado to them, no bragging. Just a simple statement of fact. But it wasn’t simple at all. It was her life, put at risk, laid on the line. For the greater good. Just like Harold. Just like him, he supposed. But something rose up in him, something dark and fierce and protective.

A physical and personal threat. This was his domain.

The world could destroy him, and Harold too, if need be, though he would do everything possible to prevent that. But it didn’t get to destroy the girl.

His face felt hot and his jaw hurt. He knew his emotions were showing. Kara Stanton had called it his Dangerous Face, and even she had been a little afraid of it.

But Christine – Christine was not afraid. Christine had never been afraid.

She crossed the room and wrapped her arms around him.

He stood still, stiff. Angry that she thought his ferocity could be so easily turned. His hands clenched at his sides. He was dangerous. She had to know he was. She simply refused to be afraid.

If she wasn’t afraid of him, when he was this close, why would she be afraid of a nebulous, faceless government?

John growled, deep in his chest. Christine made a noise that might have been a giggle. He shook himself. Then he relented, wrapped his arms around her, squeezed. Hard. “Damn it, Christine.” He looked over her head at Finch. “You should have told me.”

“If I’d thought there was any chance of changing things, I certainly would have.”

The woman wriggled out of his arms. “You two need to stop,” she said mildly. “I created the Cascade way before you were back in my life. And I managed not to get killed behind it all by myself.”

“Things change,” Reese said firmly. But as fast as his anger had risen, it had faded. In her unassailable logic, and in her fearlessness, she’d found a way to comfort him. To calm the beast.

_Still not sure you’re in love with her?_ Reese thought. _She can turn you on a dime._ He grabbed her before she could move out of range and hugged her roughly again. “Don’t die, Kitten,” he said threateningly.

“Doing my best.”

He kissed her on the forehead and turned her loose. “Finch,” he said wearily. “Where are we with Cutter?”

“He’s been admitted, as expected. I gather you didn’t have any luck accessing his computer.”

Reese took the thumb drive out of his pocket and handed it to the genius. “I couldn’t send it from the ER. I also put a bug on his bag. Once they move him up to a room, you should be able to get audio.”

“Very impressive, Mr. Reese.” Finch plugged the drive in, then squinted up at him. “You didn’t, by chance, have anything to do with Mr. Cutter’s ‘seizure’, did you?”

“He needed a minor attitude adjustment. We need to find the threat before he leaves the hospital.”

Finch studied the data his computer had pulled in. “This is not going to be much help, I’m afraid. Mr. Cutter keeps surprisingly little data on his hard drive.”

Christine took two steps toward the desk, then stopped.

“Yes, yes,” Finch said impatiently. “Come look. _Kibbutz_ at will.”

She walked around and looked over his shoulder at the screen.

They said, in unison, “Cloud.”

“Can you access it?”

They both made the same vague, non-committal noise.

“We can, of course,” Finch finally said. “But it may take time. He actually appears to have a decent password.”

Reese sighed.

“In the interim,” Finch continued, “I think that the most likely source of the threat is either Mr. Cutter’s co-workers or his job.”

“Or anyone he’s ever met on the street,” Reese grumbled. “Why do I think there’s a uniform in my near future?”

Finch gave him a little smile and stood up. “Well, they are going to be a man short on the night shift.” He walked to the side room and came back with a uniform on a hanger, under a dry cleaning bag.

“You bought another security firm?”

“Actually, Buckler Security is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Skydd.”

“So you already owned it. Convenient.”

Christine looked up. “You own Skydd?”

Finch nodded briefly. He gestured to the keyboard. “See if you can crack that password, will you?” He went to a side drawer.

“Sure.” She looked startled as she sat down, but she grabbed the keyboard and started in.

She’d been on his computer before, Reese knew, but only when Finch had set her up with restricted access. This time he’d simply handed over the system to her. He caught her glance and she raised one eyebrow at him. Neither of them knew if that had been on purpose or merely an oversight.

Except – Finch would not make that kind of mistake. Not with his computer. Of course, he was within arm’s reach; she wasn’t going to stray too far off the path. Reese raised an eyebrow back. _Welcome to the inner circle, sweetheart._ He gave her an encouraging smile. 

Finch turned back with an ID packet. “You’ve been working in the financial district,” he explained. “You’re looking to transfer permanently because it’s a shorter commute, so you offered to fill in tonight for Cutter.”

Reese checked through the documents. John Holt. They were perfect, as always. “All right. I’ll talk to Carter about Edwins. If you hear anything from Cutter, let me know.”

“I will.”

Reese got his coat. He glanced at the woman again. Smokey had nestled in her lap, and she was reaching around her to reach the keyboard. She was fully engaged in the task, and for the first time her feet had stopped tapping. “How do you get the updates?” he asked suddenly.

Christine glanced up. “Hmmm?”

“The access codes are updated monthly. How do you get the updates for the Cascade?”

“Oh. We have a bunch of different channels. And a bunch of different people get them.”

He nodded. That was smart, tactically.

“But,” she added, “it’s a funny thing. If you’re a girl who’s known for her taste for military men, no one even notices when you take a full-bird colonel up to a hotel room.”

Reese stared at her. That answer opened up so many questions. How many of her men in uniform had been sources and not lovers? Or were they both? Was she using sex as a reward for supplying the information? Or was it simply a convenience? Thanks for the data, and since you’re here anyhow …

He stopped. He didn’t want to know. He just didn’t. Whatever was in her past, let it stay there.

Her eyes read his resignation. She smiled very slightly and dropped her eyes back to the keyboard.

He looked to Finch. “Keep her busy,” he mouthed soundlessly.

“Obviously,” his partner replied, equally silent.

John nodded. That explained the unthinkable access he’d given her. And, as Reese had already observed, Finch was right there watching her. But it was a good strategy. And a generous one. He smiled gratefully and walked down the stairs.

 ***

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

Francis Cohen had been a nurse for thirty years. She took one look at her new patient – young, restless, agitated – and knew exactly the approach to take with him.

“Here you go,” she said, hovering close the minute he was transferred to the bed. “Let’s get you comfortable. You’ve had quite a morning, haven’t you?”

Cutter grumbled something.

“I’m Francis,” she said. “I’m going to be your nurse.” She smoothed the blanket over his legs. “There now, are you warm enough? I can get you another blanket. Or a pillow. You’d be more comfortable with another pillow, wouldn’t you?” She went to the closet and got one before he could answer, then fluffed it and put it behind his head. She rested her hand on his shoulder for a moment, gave it a squeeze. “Are you hungry, honey? I bet you’d like some juice. What kind of juice do you like?”

The young man blinked up at her. “Grape?” he asked quietly.

“I’ll find you some. And you think about what else I can do to make you comfortable, okay? Be right back.”

“I … thank you.”

She gave his shoulder another squeeze, then went to find him juice.

In the corridor, her co-worker rolled her eyes. “That one? I hear he was a pain in the ass down in the ER,” she said quietly.

Francis nodded. “I’m sure he was. But I never yet a boy yet who could resist the Mommy treatment.”

“Better you than me.”

 ***

Carter was sitting by the front window in the Lyric Diner, both hands wrapped around her coffee mug like it was a lifeline. John knew how she felt. For cops and spies alike, coffee was the elixir of life.

He slid into the booth across from her. “Won’t that keep you up tonight, Detective?”

“Only long enough to drive home.” She smiled briefly, took another sip. “It’s not as good as Scotty’s.”

“We could meet at Chaos, if you’d rather.”

“With all the cops that hang out there? Probably not a good idea. What did you do to Fusco?”

He held his hands up, all innocence. “I had nothing to do with it.”

They both paused while the waitress came over and put a cup of coffee in front of Reese. When she was gone, Carter said, quietly, “Something about a bomb threat?”

John shook his head. “I was not behind it, I swear.”

“And your partner wasn’t, either?”

“Not … directly.”

She gave him a look. _That_ look. For a long moment. He met her gaze squarely until a little smile finally tweaked at the corners of her mouth. She sighed. “This cop you’re asking about. Teddy Edwins. I can’t say for sure, but it looks like he was one of the good guys.” She pushed her file across the table.

“Really.” Reese glanced through the file.

“No write-ups or reprimands, only a handful of complaints, and they’re all the typical get-out-of-a-ticket kind. Nothing that looks like he’s dirty.”

“And the car crash?”

She shook her head. “They were running lights and sirens on a call. Hit black ice, skidded into a utility pole. Edwins shattered his leg.”

“His partner was killed?”

“Leyland Williams. It was his second year. He was killed on impact.”

“There wasn’t another car involved?”

“Not according to the report.”

“Edwins was driving?”

“No. Williams was.”

John sat back. He drummed his fingers thoughtfully on his coffee mug. If Edwins blamed Jason Cutter for his partner’s death somehow – but Cutter didn’t have a driver’s license or a car. “And nothing smells bad about the accident?”

“Not that I can see. You want to tell me what your interest is?”

Reese shook his head.

Carter reached out and took his wrist firmly. “John.”

“Edwins is working as a night security guard. He works with a man named Cutter whose life may be in danger.”

“How do you know that?”

He looked at her.

“Right. You’re not going to tell me. How do you think Edwins is involved?”

“I have no idea.”

She sighed, but released his arm. “You’ll keep me posted, right?”

“Of course.”

“And by posted,” Carter said firmly, “I don’t mean calling when there are a bunch of bad guys on the ground clutching their knees.”

“I’ll do my best,” Reese promised. He gave her his best winning smile.

“Uh-huh.” She stood up. “You can pay for the coffee.”

John watched her walk out. She put on her sassy walk, on purpose, he was sure. Even the no-nonsense suit she wore couldn’t hide the fact that Joss Carter had a very nice figure.

He really shouldn’t be noticing that any more, if he was in love with someone else.

He shook his head. Bound did not mean blind. It was in his nature to observe. But thinking of nice figures reminded him. He glanced at his watch. Lots of time, even if he went home to shower and change before his night shift.    

He left a twenty on the table and walked out.

 ***

Christine sighed. “We’re going to have to do this the hard way.”

“I thought as much,” Finch answered calmly. “That’s why I had you do it.”

“Oh, thanks.” She scrolled through his programs until she found the one that would crack the password – by grinding process of elimination. “Should I even ask?”

He looked over at her. Then he gestured to the board. “Jason Cutter is in danger. Or dangerous. We don’t know which yet, or why. I had hopes that the contents of his laptop would tell us, but the young man seems unusually circumspect about his data.” He turned up the speaker that was broadcasting the audio feed from Cutter’s hospital room. A woman, presumably a nurse, spoke to him, and Cutter answered quietly, politely. They seemed to be on very good terms.

Christine set the program running and stood up. “He sounds like a nice guy.”

“Hmmm. According to Mr. Reese, he was quite rude before. To a variety of people.”

“She seems to be fawning over him.”

“She does.” He listened for a moment. He’d had quite a lot of experience with hospital stays, and while his nurses had always been professional and frequently very kind, none had been quite as relentlessly kind as this one. “He’s certainly responding to her care.”

“Maybe he has brain damage.”

Finch gave her a half-smile. She joined him at the board, but glanced to him for permission before she looked directly at it. It was curious, he thought. She’d always deferred to his need for privacy, but even now, when he thought he’d clearly indicated his invitation, she was hesitant. There was something off about her. Something – distant, for lack of a better word.

She had had a rather eventful day, he reminded himself. Perhaps after her session of what amounted to face time with the Machine, she thought she’d learned enough of his secrets for one day. He couldn’t blame her. The adrenaline was certainly wearing off by now, and the reality of what might have happened was settling in. “You must be exhausted,” he said gently.

Christine nodded without looking at him. “The buzz is winding down.” She pointed to one of the pages from Cutter’s log. “Who’s this?”

“That e-mail address isn’t active. None of them are, unfortunately.” He frowned. “These are pages from a journal Mr. Reese found hidden in Mr. Cutter’s apartment. I’m sure they’re significant, but I have been able to determine how yet.”

“Did you check the forums?”

He looked at her. “The … what?”

She pointed again. “N2NY. New to New York. It’s a discussion forum.”

“I thought it was a code of some kind.” He moved closer. “And the others?”

Christine scanned them. “UWSTAT – Upper West Side Take-Away Tuesdays. They’re foodies. And this is New York Parents of Multiples.”

“Multiples – twins?”

“Twins and more, yes.” She scanned the others. “FRM – Fixies Rule Manhattan.”

“Fixie?”

“Fixed-gear bicycles.” She frowned. “Your Mr. Cutter gets around.”

“Yes,” Finch agreed slowly. “Do you know of any commonality between these groups?”

She thought about it. “They’re relatively small. Locally based. Specific. A good place to find people with similar interests.” She shrugged. “That’s not very helpful.”

“Perhaps it is. Perhaps they’re places he frequented to meet someone.”

“Hmmm?”

“We have a very preliminary theory that these e-mail addresses are women that Mr. Cutter has stalked. Perhaps he befriended them online, in these various forums, and persuaded them to meet him in person.”

“And what? Killed them?”

“I don’t know. It’s possible.” He shook his head. “These events that are listed? The crimes? None of them ever happened, or or at least none were ever reported to the police.”

She cocked her head toward the speaker. Cutter had gone quiet; there was a television show playing in the background. “If that’s what he’s doing,” she said evenly, “it would explain why he needs to move on to another forum.”

He nodded slowly. “You know these forums. Do you participate on any of them?”

“No. But forums crash. I’ve fixed a couple of them. I know the mods.”

“They would have intimate knowledge of the members.” Finch moved around to look at the screen. The program was still trying to access Cutter’s cloud files. “Would you be willing to introduce me?”

Christine already had her phone out. She scanned through her many, many contacts. “I’ll see who I can find.”

 ***

Teddy Edwins approached the unit desk quietly. Too quietly, as it turned out; the clerk had her head down and didn’t notice him. He cleared his throat and she jumped. “Sorry,” he said.

“Not your fault,” she answered. “Can I help you?”

 

Edwins had a small box of chocolates from the gift shop in one hand. He put his free hand in his pocket and thumbed over his badge wallet. He had his ID card from his security job, and he was prepared to palm over where the badge should have been. “I’m here to see Jason Cutter.”

“Room 401. Just down that way on your left.” She gestured.

“Oh.” He took his hand out of his pocket. “Thank you.”

She smiled briefly and went back to her papers.

Edwins walked down the hall. He didn’t like hospitals. He’d spent too much time in one. But this wing was quiet. Half the rooms were empty. He found Cutter’s room and went inside.

The young man was sitting up in bed, typing rapidly on his laptop.  “Hey, Jason,” Edwins said.

Cutter looked up. “Hey. Teddy.” He lowered the lid of his computer. “What are you doing here?”

“I heard about what happened. Thought I’d come check on you. How you feeling?”

“I’m okay.” He sniffed. “Kinda got a headache still.”

“I bet. Sounds like you were real lucky.”

“Lucky. Yeah. Stupid squirrels. I could’ve died.” He gestured. “That for me?”

“What? Oh, yeah.” He put the chocolates down on next to the computer. “I didn’t think you were really a flowers kind of guy.”

“No. Thanks, though.”

An uneasy silence fell. “I already called off work for tonight,” Cutter finally said. “They think I had a seizure. But I should be back tomorrow.”

“Maybe you should take some more time. A couple days, you know? Rest up?”

“Can’t afford to. You know, unless they find something.”

Edwins nodded. “Okay. But take it easy, okay? Be sure you’re ready before you come back.”

“Yeah.”

The young man’s hands strayed to the computer, though he kept the lid lowered. He clearly wanted to get back to it. “What do you do on that computer all the time?” Edwins asked. “You lookin’ at porn or what?”

“No. Well, sometimes. Mostly I talk to people. You know, online.”

Edwins nodded grimly. “You should be careful. You never know who you’re going to meet online. If they’re really who they say you are, you know?”

“You think I’m going to get catfished, Teddy? Me?”

“I don’t know what that means.”

Cutter shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. I know my way around the web.”

“Yeah. I guess you do.”

The silence returned. An older woman came in, a nurse. “Oh, you’ve got a visitor. I’ll come back.”

“No, I was just going,” Edwins said. “Just wanted to pop in for a minute. Is there, um, anything I can bring you? Anything you need?”

“No, I’m fine. Thanks for stopping by.”

“Sure. You take care. Like I said, think about taking a couple days off, okay?”

“Thanks, Teddy.”

The retired cop looked at him for a moment. At the computer. He opened his mouth. Then he closed it, looked at the nurse. Then he left.

In the corridor, he stopped and leaned against the wall. He could hear Cutter behind him, asking the nurse for another blanket. He sounded like a little boy, playing up being sick for his mommy’s attention.

Edwins shook his head and walked out.

 ***

Harold never learned his real name; his friends called him Crash, and given the scars visible on his face and hands, the nickname was well-deserved. He was a bike messenger by trade, and when Christine reached him he was waiting for his next call in a fast-food restaurant. She promised him twenty dollars and he gladly waited inside for them.

“This is Harold,” Christine said simply. “He needs to know about someone on the forum.”

If Crash had any qualms about sharing information, Christine’s presence alone was enough to calm them. “Shoot.”

“Marigold.”

Crash snorted. “That bitch. I kicked her off the week she joined.”

It had been, Finch reflected, the shortest entry in Cutter’s black book. Just the user name and password code, the forum and a date. “Why?”

“She wasn’t a rider.”

“How did you know that?”

The young man slurped his soft drink. “When she signed up, I sent her the standard welcome post. Rules of the group, how to reach the mods, you know, basic. She lurked for a while, hung around for a couple days, just little comments. Someone noticed she was new and asked her to introduce herself and talk about her favorite ride.”

“They’re total geeks on the topic,” Christine told Harold. “There are flame wars fought over pedal modifications.”

Crash nodded. “Marigold makes this post about her fave. Wyatt Street King. Not a bad choice, kinda mainstream. Expensive. So somebody asked her why. And the answer she posted – she c/p’d it right from a website. I know, ‘cause I was the OP.”

“The … OP?”

“Original poster.”

Finch nodded. “So she stole her answer directly from another website.”

“You gotta understand,” Crash said. “We don’t have a lot of women on the forum. A couple, bike monkeys, you know, messengers, a couple distance racers, but they’re pretty scarce. This is kind of a boys’ club. So to get some strange chick wandering in … it was weird to begin with. But when she did that … I don’t know. Didn’t feel right right from the gate, you know?”

“Did you ask her to explain why she’d plagiarized her reply?”

“Yeah, I hit her on the side and told her she was cold busted. Right away she said she was really sorry. Said she was shy around new people and she wanted to make new friends and make sure people liked her. She was just trying not to sound stupid. Which I get, I guess.” He shrugged. “So I told her it was okay, we weren’t mad at her but she couldn’t do that anymore. Told her she had to come clean with the group and try again. But she never posted after that. I sent her another e-mail the next week, but it bounced.”

“She closed the e-mail account,” Finch said.

“I think so.”

“In the time she was on the forum, were there any members who showed any special interest in her?”

“Sure,” Crash said. He drank again, and his cup made the loud empty sucking sound. Christine stood up without a word, took the cup and went to the counter for a refill. “Pretty much everybody. All the single guys, anyhow. Like I said, not a lot of women in our group. She seemed real nice. I was kinda sad she left. But I think she must have been one of those, you know, introverts. I dunno.”

“I don’t suppose you tried to track her IP address?”

“Not my thing. Sorry. Like I said, she was only there about a week.”

“Thank you.” Finch stood up as Christine brought the drink back to the table. “You’ve been very helpful.”

“How come you’re looking for her?” Crash asked.

“We think she’s a grifter,” Christine answered easily. “Scam artist.”

“Really? She didn’t seem like the type.”

“Sweet and innocent?”

“Yeah.”

“Like me?” she teased.

He grinned. “Yeah, Scotty, like you. Point taken.”

“Thank you again,” Finch said. He slipped the bike messenger forty dollars and they went back outside.

Christine checked her phone. “Next meeting. Maybe she’ll be more help.”

“I hope so. Lives may depend on it.”

 ***

Zoe Morgan was wearing dark red, snug and low-cut, with heels that made her legs seem a mile long. She looked fantastic, as she always did. John was surprised to find that he wanted, rather a lot, to have one drink and get a room with her.

He was working, of course, or he would be in a few hours, so both the drink and the room were off the table. And really, it was just a habitual urge. He was not going to have casual friend sex with Zoe Morgan anymore. He’d only asked her to meet him for a drink to tell her why.

He stood up, took her hand, kissed her on the cheek. She looked him up and down, eased into her chair. “So you’re cutting off my benefits.”

John felt his cheeks go warm. It was a little unnerving, how well she read him sometimes. But he smiled, relieved. “I … met someone.”

Zoe smiled back, her knowing smile but not unkind. “No, you didn’t. You met her a long time ago. You just finally made your move.”’

His cheeks felt even warmer. She knew him _too_ well.

The bartender brought a beer for him and a highball for Zoe. She swirled the stir-stick around, set it aside. “You’re finally hooking up with the detective. Good choice.”

“Carter?” Reese shook his head, surprised. “No. We’re just friends.”

She had the grace to look mildly surprised herself. “Really.” She sipped her drink. “That’ll make it tricky, you know. Explaining your job to an outsider.”

“She knows about my job.”

Zoe’s eyebrow climbed. “Well, that narrows the field.” She took another sip, considering. Reese turned his glass on its coaster, but didn’t pick it up. Finally her frown deepened. “Scotty Fitzgerald,” she guessed.

Reese smiled and dropped his eyes.

“I thought she was Harold’s …” She stopped abruptly.

John snapped his head up. “What?”

“Nothing.” She waved one hand easily. “Go. Have fun. Call me next week when it’s over.”

“It’s not like that.” John heard the mild chill in his voice.

Zoe was, of course, unimpressed with his sudden coldness. “Not for you, maybe. But her? Scotty’s strictly a three-and-out kind of girl. Nothing wrong with that. Just don’t let it catch you off guard.”

He shook his head. “Not like that,” he repeated.

She studied him. Beneath her habitual smirk, there was genuine concern in her eyes. Finally she shrugged. “Maybe I’m wrong. If I am, I wish you both the best. If not … you still have my number.”

Reese looked away. He felt confused, uncomfortable with her back-handed charity. “Thank you.”

Zoe took a big slug of her drink, put her glass down, and stood up. “See you around,” she said. She leaned and kissed him on the cheek. Then she walked out – as only Zoe could.

Watching her hips as she walked made him uncomfortably aware that he remembered exactly what she could do with those hips – and that a part of him still undeniably wanted that.

John shook his head. She had taken it well, as he’d know she would. What he and Zoe Morgan had was, as she’d said, a friendship with sexual benefits. There was no need for emotional complications when it ended; they’d both known that going in. And the residual desire he felt for her was simply that, residual. She’d been a gifted lover, and he’d enjoyed being with her. But it was time to move on.

Wasn’t it?

He’d been sure that ending things up with Zoe would make his feelings about Christine clearer. It hadn’t. He was still uncertain.

_I thought she was Harold’s …_

Zoe was very good at reading people. She’d thought Christine was Harold’s _what_? His lover? Why would she think that? Christine had been Harold’s friend, certainly, before she was John’s. His protégé. His peer. But his lover? John had never seen the slightest hint that Harold was interested in a romantic way.

Besides, Finch was now and always in love with Grace Hendricks.

And he had taken every possible opportunity to put Christine and John together, right from the start. _Stay away from her, Mr. Reese._ The genius had been subtle about it, secretive, but John had seen his almost-but-not-quite invisible fingerprints.

Still -- maybe things had changed. Maybe Harold had reconsidered. Maybe John was picking up on that change, subliminally if not consciously. Maybe that’s why he was hesitant to make a move.

He thought about it. Christine in Harold’s arms in the library. But then, Christine in _his_ arms and no reaction from his partner.  

He turned the idea over in his mind. It was unlikely. Very unlikely. But it was possible. And maybe just the possibility that his partner was interested in Christine was what caused John to hesitate.

He was ninety-nine percent sure that wasn’t the case. But he was protective of Harold, too. Now that the doubt had surfaced, he needed to be entirely sure.

And the only way to be completely sure, he decided gloomily, was to ask him.

 ***

Amy Melchiori was a social worker, and they met her just as she was finishing up her day. She gestured them into chairs in her very cluttered office. “Good to see you again, Scotty. And Mr.?”

“Crow,” Finch supplied. “Harold Crow.” He presented one of his cards. “I’m a private investigator, as Miss Fitzgerald told you. I appreciate your taking the time to meet with us. We’re investigating a fraud case – or possibly several of them. I understand that you have an online forum for the parents of multiples?”

She nodded, settling behind her desk. “In my spare time,” she said sardonically, waving to her office. “I have triplets. They’re six now, they’re a little easier, but when they were babies, there were just not enough resources. What really helped was talking with other parents. There are groups that meet in person, but getting out of the house when you have three babies – not happening. So I started an online group.”

“There was a young woman who joined the group eighteen months ago. Her forum name was Cricket.”

“Oh, _her_ ,” Amy said with evident disgust and pity. “ _She’s_ committing fraud? That doesn’t surprise me a bit.”

“You remember her, then?” Finch prompted.

“I remember her.” The woman sighed heavily. “She was very young. At least, she said she was. I don’t really know. She said she was sixteen and she was pregnant with twins. Sixteen weeks, she said. She was unmarried, of course, and she was afraid to tell her parents. She thought they’d kick her out.”

“Difficult,” Finch said.

“We felt horrible for her. The whole forum rallied around her. Gave her links to resources, talked to her – I offered to meet with her and talk to her parents with her. And she agreed. We set up a time, and then at the last minute she cancelled. Twice, actually. Then she said she’d told them. That her dad had noticed she was showing, and they were furious.” The woman frowned. “All that weekend we sat vigil with her, basically. She’d come on and post about having another fight with them, and we’d offer her options, places to go – and then she’d come back and say things were better. Then Monday she said she was spotting and we all told her to go to the hospital, but she screwed around for another three days before she finally went …”

Amy paused, ran her hand over her face. “You have to understand. I’m a social worker. People come through those doors with every lie and excuse in the world. I’ve heard it all. I am the most cynical person you’ll ever meet. But this poor girl – we just poured our hearts into helping this poor girl. Not just me, but dozens of us.”

“It was a lie?” Christine asked.

“We didn’t want to believe it at first. And I still don’t know if all of it was a lie, or just part, or what. But her stories just got more and more far-fetched. She said she went to the hospital and they sent her home because there was nothing they could do. She said her parents threw her out, but when I offered to go get her she said they changed their minds. Then after a couple weeks she said she was in labor again, in the hospital. We offered to come visit her. She said they sent her home. And then at twenty-five weeks she said she was in labor again.” She shook her head again. “All these other women on the list, they’re going through the same thing, or they’ve gone through it. Everybody knows all about early labor, about what the odds are for babies at each week, all the drugs, all the procedures. We’re pros, you know? And the more Cricket posted, the more what she was saying didn’t make sense.

“Finally she said her twins had been born prematurely and they were in critical condition. I told her I’d come and be with her. She said no. I asked her what hospital she was at and she wouldn’t tell me. She said that she was afraid of her father, that he’d made a big scene outside the delivery room.” She sighed. “I’m not supposed to, but I … called a friend of mine. An OB. I genuinely thought this young girl might be in danger.”

“And there were no twins,” Finch said.

Amy shook her head. “My friend called all her friends, and they called all their friends. No teen mothers of twins that week. No raging fathers of teens outside delivery rooms. Nothing. So the next time she posted, I hit her on the side, told her I doubted her story, and demanded to know where she was.” She sighed. “She posted to the forum that her twins had died. And that was the last we ever heard from her. After that all my e-mails bounced.”

“Did you give her money?” Christine asked.

“No. Some of the members wanted to – hell, _I_ wanted to – but a group like this, once you start something like that, it just gets out of control. So it’s a hard and fast rule that we never do that. We talked about getting together some gear for her – we all have cribs, clothes, bottles – but she always put us off, said to hold off until she had a place of her own or things were settled or whatever. We did give her a lot of links to sources that could provide financial assistance, but I don’t think she ever followed up.”

“If she wasn’t after money,” Finch mused, “then what was the point of all her lies?”

“I don’t know,” Amy said sadly. “I just don’t. If it was money, at least that would make sense. But this -- the amount of time and worry we put into that girl … and all the other women who really needed it … I am just … I don’t even have words. I couldn’t believe that someone would tell lies that monumental. That horrible. And like I said, I’ve heard it all. It was just – beyond me.”

Finch nodded his understanding. “Did you ever attempt to track her e-mails? Her IP address?”

The social worker looked at him for a long moment. “I was worried about her.”

“I understand completely.”

“It didn’t do any good. Her posts came from different IPs. And the ones we were able to track were obviously bounced somehow. They all went back to big office buildings.”

Finch glanced quickly at Christine. She kept her face calm, unresponsive. “Any specific office buildings?”

“The Flatiron, and then the Marshall Tower.”

“Hmmm. Could she have been employed there, perhaps?”

“I don’t think so. Of course, I don’t know if she was really sixteen, so maybe. But she usually only posted at night. She said she couldn’t be on the computer until her father was in bed. And those buildings are closed then.”

“Hmmm,” Christine said.

“That part drove us crazy, while we were all worried about her. I don’t know how many times I stayed up half the night hoping that she’d post. I even offered to buy her a laptop, so she could keep in touch better.” She shook her head again. “She played me. I don’t even know who she really was, but she played me. If she’s behind some kind of fraud, like I said, I wouldn’t be surprised. But I don’t know how you’re going to catch her.”

“We will catch her,” Finch said firmly. “Believe me, we will catch her.” He considered. “Your site called _parents_ of multiples. You have men who are members as well?”

“Some. Mostly it’s mothers who post, but they share with their partners. We try hard to make dads welcome, too. Only a handful post, but they’re great guys. Especially if there’s a father who’s just starting out with this, they’ll take him into private chats if he wants to. It helps, to talk guy stuff one-on-one. But I know quite a few lurk, too.”

“Were there any of the men who were particularly interested in Cricket? Concerned about her?”

“All of them were. They’re fathers. She was a child, in a way. They were very protective. Some of them offered to go talk to her parents, too, or to go to the hospital to be with her.”

“Anyone stand out as being …” Finch hesitated, reaching for the right word, “ … creepy?”

Amy considered. “No. Not really.”

“Are there any men who joined at the same time Cricket did?” Christine prompted. “Or left when she did?”

The social worked thought about these questions, too. “No. All my guys – no. They’ve either been around for a long time or they’ve come since then.”

Finch stood up. “Thank you for your time.”

“Sorry I couldn’t be more help.”

“You were very helpful, believe me.” He shook her hand, then gathered Christine with a gesture and walked her out.

On the sidewalk, though, he shook his head. “We are getting nowhere. Nothing there points to Mr. Cutter stalking this young woman, even if we could actually locate her.”

Christine cocked her head at him. “What did I miss?”

“What do you mean?”

“I heard the hoof beats, but what did you hear that’s got you thinking zebras?”

Occam’s Razor, Finch recognized immediately. Simply put, the most obvious solution was usually the correct one. More simply put, if you hear hoof beats, think horses, not zebras. “You don’t think Mr. Cutter is stalking them. You think he _is_ Cricket and Marigold and the others.”

“’On the internet, no one knows you’re a dog,’” she quoted. “I’ve been men online, lots of times, just because it’s convenient.”

“But why would he do this? As your friend said, if there was a financial motive – but this is simple inexplicable.”

“He’s an attention whore,” Christine answered. “He’s drama-farming. A troll. He joins these forums and sucks up the attention.”

Finch considered as they walked. “That’s beyond reprehensible.”

“Yeah. But it’s not unheard of. It’s not even illegal. Just horrible.”

“Still – even if someone learned the truth, I can’t see this provoking someone to plot a murder.”

“I can.” Christine nodded to herself. “If my premature twins had died, and I spend weeks and months trying to help this unwed teen mother and then found out that she was some punk kid who just made shit up to get a response? I might take a whack at him.”

He glanced at her. “That’s useful to know. And I do see your point. The other notes, the crimes he claimed to have suffered … that there are no police reports about.” He nodded. ‘If this is true -- what an utterly horrible man Mr. Cutter is.”

“But you’re still going to save him, aren’t you?”

They walked the rest of the way to the car in silence. “I suppose we are,” Finch finally said.

He watched her glance around them, to the people on the sidewalk, in the cars. Happy people, angry ones, indifferent ones. People who did not know how close they had come to dying very suddenly just a few hours before. He could see the deep weariness in her. But she did not argue. She understood. Or at least she accepted his decision.

He opened the car door. “I’ll take you home.”

“I can help you,” Christine offered.

“You have helped enough for one day. More than enough. You’re tired. You deserve to be tired. And Mr. Cutter, now that I know what to look for, should be no great challenge. I will unravel his trails through the internet, however sordid they may be.”

“Random …” she began. Then she stopped and simply put her arms around him. He held her until she slid away and got into the car. That brief embrace confirmed what he’d already guessed: Christine was utterly exhausted.

He drove her home and saw her to her door.

 ***

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

Reese tugged at the collar of his uniform shirt. He didn’t like the way it felt. The fabric contained a lot of polyester and it made his neck sweaty. There had been a time when he’d worn a shirt like this every day and it hadn’t bothered him. But now he was accustomed to finer things, like pure cotton shirts that someone else ironed for him.

He had a radio in the holster on his belt. He had a gun strapped to his ankle, but his co-workers didn’t know that. Only Edwins was carrying openly. The third member of the team, a sixty year old man with skin the color of espresso, was named Vincent. Despite his gray hair, Vincent moved like he was very fit. “You look like a runner,” Reese observed easily, once the introductions had been made.

“You got a good eye. Run marathons. I’m not fast, but I always finish.”

“Good for you.”

“You?”

“Little of everything,” Reese admitted. “But I don’t have the knees for distance running anymore.”

“You and me both,” Edwins teased lightly.

John glanced at the man’s leg; he had a faint but obvious limp. “What happened? Can I ask?”

“Car crash.” Edwins handed him a flat white card on a lanyard. “This scan card will get you through any door in the building,” he said. “Don’t lose it, and don’t forget to turn it in before you leave. Why don’t you take the walk-around first?” he directed. “Just pick a floor, stroll through, go to the next floor. Sound off it you see anything unusual. It’ll give you a chance to get familiar with the building.”

“Sounds good,” Reese said.

“Come back down in an hour and we’ll switch off.” He looked to Vincent. “Front or back?”

“Ehhh, back.”

“Good.”

They split up. Reese took the elevator to the top floor. It was quiet and dim, with only the security lights on. He tapped his earpiece. “Finch?”

“I’m here, Mr. Reese.”

“Anything more on our boy?”

Finch sighed heavily. “I’m afraid so. I managed to access his cloud files. More of the same. Much more.”

John stopped at the end of the hall and leaned against the wall. “So he claimed to be a young woman who’d been mugged and raped.”

“And one whose premature children had died. One who was being molested by her step-brother. Several who were contemplating suicide for various reasons. That seems to be a particular favorite of his. Oh, and one who had had a cocaine-induced stroke and was now living in nursing home, where she was being abused by the staff.”

“He wasn’t scamming people for money, though.”

“No.” Finch’s words were clipped. “He apparently perpetuated his little dramas solely for the purpose of gaining attention. He told these people his sad stories and they did everything they could to comfort and help him. They were completely invested in mitigating his imaginary distress.”

“You think someone would try to kill him over that?”

“As Miss Fitzgerald pointed out, if I were the parent of real children who had actually died, and I learned that this young man had played on my sympathies this way? I might be … tempted, at any rate.”

Reese resumed his walk. He checked the office doors as he went, but all of them were locked. “How did they find him?”

“It would be difficult, but not impossible. Mr. Cutter seems to interact with the forums only when he’s at work, using the various wi-fi systems throughout the office building. Anyone who managed to trace his IP would assume it had been bounced. But if they took a closer look, they might be able to determine his identity.”

“Or at least that he was one of the guards,” John completely. “One of three. Might be easy to narrow it down from there. 

“Most of the men he works with are older. A number of them are, like Mr. Edwins, retired police officers supplementing their income. He is the most obvious suspect, once someone realized how they’d been deceived.”

He took the stairs down to the next floor. “Once they knew where he worked,” Reese said, “it would be no problem to follow him home. He doesn’t pay attention to his surroundings.” He tried another doorknob, and unexpectedly the door opened. He frowned, stepped into the office. It was an accounting firm, and it was dark and quiet. “Hold on, Finch.” Reese picked up his radio. “Edwins?  It’s Holt.”

“Go ahead,” the former cop answered immediately.

“I’ve got an open door on 28.”

“2810?” the man guessed immediately.

“Yes.”

“They do that all the time. Take a look around, but if it’s clear, just press that red button inside the door. That will lock it.”

“Will do.”

“Let me know when you’ve cleared it.”

Reese put his radio away and moved quickly through the space. There was no one there. He locked the door and went back to the hallway. “All clear,” he reported on the radio.

“Ten-four.”

He got back in touch with Finch. “We’ll need to stay close to Cutter, once he leaves the hospital.”

“Most assuredly. Although – given what I’m hearing on the bug, Mr. Cutter will never want to go home.”

“How’s that?”

“He’s reveling, for lack of a better word, in the attention.”

“Just like he did online.”

“Yes. I’m afraid this incident may move Mr. Cutter right into an actual diagnosable case of Munchhausen’s disease.”

“I’d like to move him into a jail cell.”

“I’m not sure that anything Mr. Cutter has done is technically illegal.”

Reese growled. “There’s got to be something.”

“I’ll keep looking. But since he hasn’t taken any money, it will be difficult to prove anything beyond, perhaps, harassment.”

“Find something, Finch. This punk doesn’t get to walk behind this.”

“I’ll do my best, Mr. Reese.”

 ***

Donnelly pushed back from his desk and rubbed his eyes. He’d been looking at the screen so long the words had begun to blur together.

There were a million details flowing into the Den. Some of them were important. Most weren’t. They were working to sort it all. Lots of leads. Lots of suspects. Most of the government and all of the military was in a tizzy. He’d read a quote once, somewhere: _The only good government is a bad government in a hell of a scare._ That was where they were now. All the agencies working together, willingly, eagerly. All the data flowing like water. It wouldn’t last, of course. By morning the scare would begin to fade and the agencies resume withholding data from each other.

But they couldn’t withhold it from Asena, and she would put it all together.

At least, he devoutly hoped she would.

He dropped his chin to his chest, moved his hands to the back of his neck, and rubbed firmly. It didn’t help much.

Coffee, he thought remotely. More coffee.  He’d had so much that he couldn’t even taste it anymore, but he stood up and walked to the kitchen for more. It wasn’t as good as Scotty’s. No one’s was.

***

Reese worked through the cycles of guarding. After his hour of wandering the halls, he sat for an hour at the loading dock desk, and another in the lobby. It was quiet and boring. He didn’t see anything that got him any closer to knowing who wanted Cutter dead.

It still beat the hell out of humping bags around the Coronet Hotel.

Finch had loaded a dozen books on an e-reader for him, but Reese didn’t read any of them. He looked around, and he thought about things.

He didn’t come to any conclusions about anything, except to decide that he was very tired.

Edwins came down at the end of the third hour and relieved him. “Take your dinner break,” he said.

Reese went and got his lunch, then went back out to the front desk. “My girl packed me an extra sandwich,” he said. “You want it?”

The former cop looked at him. “What kind?”

“The big kind. She calls it a Dagwood. Whatever that is.”

Edwins nodded, and Reese gave him one of the sandwiches, got the other out for himself. They were huge, wrapped in tin foil, and very fresh. “You don’t know Dagwood?” Edwins asked.

“No.”

“It’s a cartoon. Dagwood and Blondie. He’s always hungry, makes these huge sandwiches with everything on them.” He took a bite, chewed thoughtfully. “This is really good.”

“I know,” Reese said, around his own bite.

“Your girl made you two of these? How come so much?”

“Her mom’s always on to her make sure I get enough to eat. Like I’ve going to starve overnight.”

“Italian girl?”

“Yeah.”

Edwins nodded. “My wife was Italian. Her mother fed me every time she saw me. And her grandmother, too, when she was living. Man, they were good cooks.”

“She says that’s how they tell us they love us,” John said.

“I suppose that’s true. And believe me, I never complained. Except when I had to pass my physical every year.”

“You were a regular cop?” Reese asked easily.

“Eighteen years. Then I was in a car crash, screwed up my leg. I told you that already, didn’t I? Two big pieces of titanium in it now. Leg’s probably worth more than my life insurance.”

“You didn’t want to stay on the force, finish your twenty?.”

“I could’ve, behind a desk, but they offered me a buy-out. So, whatever, take the money, get this job, sit on my ass and not have to deal with the brass. It was a good deal.”

“More time for your wife to feed you,” Reese agreed.

Edwins shook his head. “She’s been gone six years now. Cancer.”

“I’m sorry.”

He shrugged. “She went quick. It was better that way. And the kids, they’re all married, got their own lives. So it’s pretty much just me.”

“Lonely?”

“Well, I got you and Vincent.” Edwins waved his sandwich. “And I think I’m in love with your girl.”

Reese smiled. “She’s pretty special.”

“So what are your plans, John?”

“With the girl? Haven’t decided yet.”

“The girl, the job, your life. You aren’t gonna stay a night watchman forever.”

“How do you know that?”

Edwins wiped his mouth. “Cop for eighteen years, remember? I got to know people, just to look at them. You, you’re more than this.” He waved at the empty lobby. “You’re okay with this for a while, but you came from better things and you’ll go back to them. This isn’t your life. It’s just where you’re taking a little break.”

“I guess you’re right about that,” Reese allowed.

“Now guys like me, I already had a career, and Vincent had one, too. We’re here for the long haul. And punks like Cutter, the guy you’re filling in for? He’s here because he’s too lazy to do anything else. But you? You’re just passing through.”

“Maybe so.” John took a bite, chewed slowly. Finally he swallowed. “Cutter, that’s his name? Head office, when they called me in, they said he got poisoned?”

“He got CO poisoning in his apartment. Squirrel’s nest in his furnace vent. I guess when it’s been so warm these past couple days. Then it got cold and the heat kicked on.”

“Huh. That’s the stuff that makes you fall asleep, right? He’s lucky he woke up.”

“Not lucky. Guys like you and me? We go home in the morning and go to bed. Cutter jumps on his video game like he was a teenager.”

“When does he sleep?”

Edwins smirked. “At work, when he’s supposed to be walking around. At least I think that’s what he does. That or surfing for porn. Sure was hell he doesn’t do any walking around.”

John considered a moment. “2810. You unlocked that door, didn’t you?”

“Well, I gotta check up on my new guy, don’t I?”

Reese grinned ruefully. “I guess you do.”

“Cutter never finds them. Never. I’ve written him up a couple times. But hell, he works his shifts and he shows up sober, they’re not going to do anything about him.” He shrugged. “Sooner or later it’ll catch up to him, though. Guys like that, lazy, always seeing what they can get away with? Sooner or later they do something they can’t get away with, and then it all comes home to roost.”

“Yeah,” John answered, careful to sound unconvinced. “I’m not so sure about that.”

Edwins looked out over the lobby thoughtfully. “I am.”

 ***

Nicholas Donnelly paced the length of his cubicle-sized office slowly. It was six small steps from the door to the back wall: If he paced too quickly he got dizzy. But if he sat at the desk any more he was going to fall asleep. Again.

He rubbed the bridge of his nose. It still hurt from where it had collided with his keyboard.

“Crime report headlines,” he said. “Start with New York.”

The computer began reading off headlines as instructed. It started with murders. He listened to three, then said, “Stop. Display on screens.”

The harsh metallic voice fell silent. The headlines appeared on his computer screen. He leaned on the back of his chair and read them. Murders. Attempted murders. Armed robberies. A break-in at a bank, no money stolen. A penthouse apartment cleaned out while its owners were in San Tropez. Half a dozen houses robbed. More than a dozen cars …

Donnelly paused. He was missing something.

He scrolled back to the top of the screen. Murders. Attempted murders. Armed robberies. A break-in …

He clicked on the link. A bank branch was broken into. Some equipment stolen, but the vault hadn’t been opened.

Donnelly straightened up. Why rob a bank when all the money was locked up? If you were after computers, there were a million offices in the city with a lot less security. Why a bank?

He clicked through to the preliminary FBI report. The items stolen were all electronics. Computers, surveillance cameras, monitors. Alarms and phone lines were cut, and exterior cameras had been disabled. From Donnelly’s initial read, it had been a sophisticated operation, very professional. Which led back to the question: Why at night, when the money is locked up? Why go to so much trouble if you weren’t after the cash?

From the report, they hadn’t even tried to open the vault.

The hair on the back of his neck stood on end. He ran his hand over it. Yes, something there. Something he should see. What the hell was it?

He could hear the gears in his brain grinding. This should be easy, obvious. He was too damn tired to think.

New York. Bank. Computers. Missiles.

“Oh, hell.”

He sat down and clicked on the address of the bank. Almost immediately, the computer came up with what he already knew: the same building had been evacuated the day before, in a bomb scare.

He opened another program. Christine had called him, from her phone. There would be a trail. There wasn’t supposed to be, as far as the public knew, but there was – and in the Den, he had immediate access. In the ten seconds it took the data to come up, he turned his head toward the open door and yelled, “Director! I’ve got something.”

Poole came to the doorway, with Maxwell behind him. “What’d you find?”

“Nine,” Donnelly said, still typing, narrowing the data. “Bad Wolf Nine called my cell phone yesterday.”

“I was there.”

“The signal came from this specific section of the city.” He pointed to his screen, a ring overlaid on a map of the city. “In the middle of it is this office tower. The building was evacuated yesterday – at the time of the incident – because of a reported bomb threat. No bomb was found. But the ground floor of the building is a bank branch.”

“Right,” Maxwell said. “So Nine was there, using the computers for the Rally Call, and the Source cleared the whole building to give her room to work. That’s SOP. So what?”

“The bank was broken into last night,” Donnelly announced. “No money was taken – just the computers and the surveillance system.”

The men looked at each other. Poole whistled, impressed. “They think they can trace back to the Source from the computers she used.”

“We did think they were probing our defenses,” Maxwell agreed.

“ _Can_ they trace her?” Donnelly worried aloud. “If they have unlimited time to take those computers apart, can they find a way back to her?”

Poole shook his head. “The Source is way better than that. She wouldn’t leave a trail.”

Donnelly found he agreed. He knew Asena well. She was far more clever than they were.

“But maybe,” Poole continued, “the _thieves_ left a trail.”

“Find the thieves, find their masters.”

“Exactly. Good work. Tip off the FBI office in New York, put a red flag on it. We want these people found.”

Maxwell said, “We theorized that they might be tracking more than one of the Wolves. Let’s look for similar break-ins.”

“Yes,” Poole said. “This is what we needed.”

They left to brief the others. Donnelly let himself revel in the small victory for a moment. Then he started to compose an e-mail to the senior agent in New York. The Source would mask its origin, but would make sure it got top priority.

He composed the message to a specific agent. He knew Brian Moss in passing – had known him, in his previous life. He was a good agent. A good investigator. Not as good as Donnelly had been, of course. He was completely blind to what Carter was up to, and to the fact that the Man in the Suit was still very much alive. Of course, now that Donnelly knew the assets the Man had behind him, it was hard to image that anyone would ever catch him. He would make a mistake some day and end up dead, but until then, no one was going to be able to break his cover.

He took a certain grim satisfaction in that. Donnelly _had_ caught him, however briefly – and John had been living under the divine protection of Asena herself. Now that he knew who his opponent had actually been, he was pretty damn impressed with the success he’d had.

Asena had protected the Man in the Suit, and she would protect her Bad Wolves as well. These thieves weren’t after Christine anyhow. They had to know she didn’t have any useful information. They were after the computers. They were trying to find the Source.

 _Good luck with that_ , he thought. _You have no idea what you’re up against._ He grinned wearily as he typed.

 ***

Reese left the Marshall Building first, then waited out of sight for Edwins to exit. “Finch,” he said while he waited, “what’s the word on Cutter?”

“He’s scheduled to be discharged first thing this morning,” Harold answered immediately.

“All right. I’ll head over there and make sure he gets home safe. Then we’re going to need Fusco to come watch him. I’ve got to get some sleep.”

“I’ve already made arrangements on that front, Mr. Reese.”

John nodded to himself. “Good man, Finch.”

“Why, thank you.”

Edwins came out of the building and walked around the block to the same deli Cutter had visited the day before. There was the same orderly line, the same quick waitress/cashier behind the counter. Reese watched through the window. It was clear that Edwins knew the woman; after he’d paid for his sandwich, he lingered in the way to walk to her.

Whatever he said, the gray-haired woman at first frowned, then smiled reassuringly. Edwins only stayed a few minutes, but Reese got the impression they knew each other very well.

The former cop walked the opposite direction from the subway. Reese watched him out of sight, then hailed a cab.

He used the skills he’d learned from the CIA and slept for twenty-four minutes on the way to the hospital.

 ***

Carter got to the precinct before Fusco in the morning. When he walked in, she was leaning on the edge of his desk, tapping her foot. “Am I late?”

“Late enough,” she snapped. She jerked her head toward the interrogation room. “Let’s go.”

“What, I can’t even take my coat off?”

“Now, Fusco.” She stamped off.

The detective grinned. He took his coat off, a little more slowly than he needed to, and hung it on a hook. Then he walked, again slowly, back to the little room.

Before he even got the door shut, Special Agent Brian Moss came striding across the squad room. He saw them and came immediately to the door. “Detective Carter, could you excuse us, please?”

Carter shook her head. “He’s my partner. You got …”

“ _Detective_. Please.”

She bristled visibly at his tone. Then she turned and walked out. Slowly.

“This better be good,” Fusco said. “You just pissed off my partner first thing in the morning.”

“The incident yesterday,” Moss said quickly. “With Miss Fitzgerald.”

“Yeah, I kinda remember that.”

“I need to know why she picked that particular location.”

Fusco looked at him. The FBI agent was wide-eyed, impatient. He’d been, the times Fusco had seen him, a lot more laid back than Donnelly had been. But if FBI agents got freaked out, Moss was right there. Hair on fire freaked. Carefully, he answered, “It was where we were.”

“What does that mean?”

“I took her to my son’s school for lunch. We were on our way back …”

“You’re dating?”

“That’s none of your business.”

Moss blinked. “Right. Fine. You were saying?”

“We were on our way back and her phone went off. Made this sound I’ve never heard before. She told me to stop the car, right there. She got out, looked around, picked the bank. Why?”

“So it was completely random?”

“Why are you asking?”

“It was random?” Moss repeated firmly.

“Yeah. It was random.”

The agent nodded. ‘Thank you, Detective.”

He headed for the door. Fusco got there first. “Nu-uh. Why are you asking?”

“That’s … classified.”

Fusco glared at him.

Moss looked around. “The bank,” he said reluctantly, “was robbed last night.”

“How much did they get?”

“Money? None. It was all in the vault. They didn’t even try to open it.”

“So what’d they take?”

Moss looked around again. He lowered his voice. “All the computers. And all the surveillance cameras.”

“What?”

“Yeah, I know.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

The FBI agent shook his head. “I have no idea. But I know it’s not good.”

When Moss left, Fusco started back to his desk. Carter met him halfway. “What was that about?”

“Can’t tell you. Moss says it’s top secret.”

“You don’t have top secret clearance,” Carter snapped.

“Not allowed to talk about it,” Fusco insisted. “Matter of national security.”

Joss nodded thoughtfully. “You remember that night in the hotel, when Donnelly had John cornered? And I pulled my weapon on you in the men’s room?”

“I remember,” he admitted ruefully.

“You gonna make me do that again? Because I will, believe me.”

Fusco grinned. He looked past her to make sure Moss was gone. Then he took her arm and led her toward the door. “Let’s go for a drive.”

 ***

“Finch?” Reese said. “Cutter’s home safe.”

“I know,” Finch answered in his ear.

“Where are you?”

“I’ll meet you outside Mr. Cutter’s apartment.”

John rolled his eyes and went inside the building. When he reached Cutter’s apartment, the door across the hall opened and Finch gestured for him to come inside.

“Let me guess,” Reese said as he closed the door behind him, “you bought an apartment building.”

“No, of course not. I did sublet this apartment for two weeks, thought, while its tenant went on a vacation to Key West.”

“Hemingway fan?”

Finch gave him a small approving smile. “I think it was more the lure of tropical drinks. In any case,” he gestured around the apartment, “I thought this would be a useful base of operation.”

His computer was already running on the tiny kitchenette table. “I took the liberty of bringing our own linens. The bed is made, and there are clean towels in the bathroom.”

“And naturally you brought me a change of clothes.”

“Naturally. Would you like some breakfast?”

Reese shook his head. “Shower. Sleep.” He paused in the doorway. “Christine went home?”

Finch had already returned to his computer. He nodded.

“Did you check on her this morning?”

Harold looked up. “I have not. I’ll call her, if you like.”

Reese considered. Finch didn’t sound either pleased or displeased with the idea. He seemed completely neutral. Not concerned about her, not unwilling to contact her. Whatever Zoe thought, John couldn’t get a read. “She may still be asleep.”

“I’ll let you know if I hear from her.”

John nodded and went to shower.

 ***

Finch made himself a fresh cup of tea – he’d brought his own supplies – and sat down in front of his computer again. He’d also hauled in two extra screens, so that he could watch their client on one while he unraveled the man’s e-mails on the other.

Mr. Reese had showered and fallen into bed. The door was partly open; a loud call would bring him to Finch’s side. But for the moment, he was deeply asleep.

Jason Cutter was, in Finch’s opinion, an utterly horrible person. As he followed the threads of Cutter’s posts, under various names in various forums, his utter distain for the man grew. Cutter was a brilliant manipulator. He knew when to push, when to apologize and retreat. When to drop another bombshell lie to rally the attention and sympathy back to his character.

All of the threads were carefully saved on Cutter’s cloud account.

He collected the genuine caring of good-hearted people like trophies on a hunter’s electronic wall.

On the other screen, the young man continued to play video games with joyful relish.

Finch stood up and walked to the window. There was no view, of course. Just another brick wall a few feet away. The apartment was small and cluttered and had a peculiar smell.

He wondered, as he had wondered before, if some of the people they saved were really worth saving at all.

Of course they were, he argued with himself. Every single person on the planet was worth saving, because every single person had potential. They could change, reform, do good. Anyone, no matter what they’d done in their past. Anyone could learn. Could change.

But he didn’t see much sign that Mr. Cutter had the slightest interest in changing.

He had to be saved, Finch decided. That went without saying. But he also had to be stopped.

There were no laws against what Cutter was doing. It was horrible, reprehensible, but it wasn’t illegal. It should be, Finch thought. The kind of emotional pain Cutter was inflicting on the people who were trying desperately to help him—

Finch heard a knock and looked toward the apartment door. Then he realized it had come from the computer. He moved back to the table and watched.

Cutter grumbled as he paused his game and went to the door. He looked through the peephole, then opened the door. An older woman stood outside, bundled in her winter coat, with a paper bag in one hand and a disposable cup of coffee in the other.

“What are you doing here?” Cutter asked bluntly.

“I heard what happened to you,” the woman said. “I’m so sorry. I thought I’d see if you were home yet, if you’re like some breakfast.” She held out her parcels to him.

The young man took them. “How did you know where I lived?”

“I … called the office. I’ve seen your name tag, so I knew … I told them I was your aunt. How are you doing? Is there anything you need?”

“A swift kick in the pants,” Finch muttered under his voice.

Cutter seemed to pull himself together. “No, I’m fine. Um … do you want to come in?”

The woman smiled, but shook her head. “No, I’ve got to get home. I just wanted to check in on you. I know you don’t have anyone – that’s hard, isn’t it? When you’re all alone?”

The young man nodded. “Um … thank you.”

The woman walked away.

Cutter closed the door and went back to his couch. He unpacked his sandwich, took a bite. Then he spit it back into the bag. “Ugh. Tastes like shit.” He threw the rest of the sandwich in and tossed it in the general direction of the trash can.

“You ungrateful little …” Finch muttered. Then intuition grabbed at his gut. He thought quickly, then put on his overcoat. He checked his pocket for the proper card, then went across the hall and knocked briskly on Cutter’s door.

There was audible swearing, and then a long pause before the young man opened the door. He glared at Finch. He had the coffee cup in his hand, still with the lid on. “Who are you?”

Finch pushed up his glasses. “Harold Wren,” he said, offering a business card. “Universal Heritage Insurance.”

The young man squinted at him. “I don’t need any insurance.”

“No, no,” Finch said. “I’m not selling anything, I assure you. I represent the management company for this building. I understand that you had a medical issue as a result of your recent – accident.”

“Huh?”

“You were hospitalized?” Finch prompted.

“Yeah. I just got home. But I have insurance.”

“Yes, of course. But in the event that there are expenses that are not covered by your insurance, the management company has authorized Universal Heritage to reimburse you for those expenses.”

Cutter blinked at him. “Huh?”

“If there are expenses that your insurance does not cover, deductibles or incidentals, please contact me and Universal Heritage will reimburse them for you.”

“Oh.” Cutter examined the card with more interest. “Oh.”

“You understand that this offer is not an admission of any liability on the part of the management company.”

The young man’s eyes lit up. “Right. Of course.”

“It is merely a courtesy that the company wishes to extend to you, as a valued tenant.”

“Right.”

“And you’ll need to sign a form to that effect before any funds can be distributed.”

“Uh-huh.”

 

Finch paused. “Well. You must be tired from your experience. I won’t trouble you any further. But as I said, if you do incur any expense, please don’t hesitate to contact my office.”

“I will do that,” Cutter said.

Finch could hear the hopeful dollar signs in his voice. He pretended to ignore it. He stuck his hand out. “It’s been very nice to meet you, Mr. Cutter.”

Cutter shifted his cup from one hand to the other. Finch moved his hand the wrong way, awkwardly, and knocked the cup away. The lid came off when the cup hit his shoe, spilling the entire contents onto the carpet in the hallway.

“Damn it!” Cutter said.

“I am so sorry,” Finch said quickly. “I am – I was clumsy, I apologize, I didn’t mean … if you could lend me a towel, paper towels, I’ll …

“Forget it,” Cutter said. “The building will clean it up. And I’ll, uh, add it to my bill.” He grinned wolfishly and closed the door in Finch’s face.

Finch leaned and picked up the cup carefully. There was a small amount left in the bottom. He carried it back to the other apartment.

He was not surprised to find Reese standing at the table, waiting for him. He looked blank, still tired and more annoyed than angry.

“A woman brought him breakfast,” Finch began to explain.

Reese nodded grimly. “I re-wound the tape. She’s from the place around the corner from the Marshall Building. He stops there every morning.”

“So perhaps I wasted his coffee for nothing.”

“Edwins stopped and talked to her this morning.”

“Or perhaps I saved his life.”

Reese sighed. “Get the coffee analyzed. And don’t go over there again without waking me up.”

“Of course, Mr. Reese.”

John stared at him for a moment. Then he went back to the bedroom without a word.

Finch sat down and slipped his shoe off. It was leather and well-conditioned; it might survive the soaking. He got a paper towel and dried it carefully. Then he found a small container and poured the remainder of the coffee into it. He called a courier service, then sat down to write a note for Detective Fusco.

On the screen, Cutter continued to play his video game.

 ***  

Brian Moss looked around the empty command center. It was an impressive set-up: rows of tables, all lined with computers. Up on the old stage was a massive bank of viewscreens. It was all wired and operational, exactly as it had been left. He could put a hundred agents to work in this room.

From this room Nicholas Donnelly had run his massive search for the elusive Man in the Suit. Eventually he’d both succeeded and failed in that quest: The Man and his partner had killed Donnelly, but had subsequently been killed themselves. Moss had come in on the clean-up. A literal clean-up, he reflected ruefully. They had scraped bits of Snow and Stanton off about three city blocks.

Now the command center was his to command. His superiors were frantic to identify the people who had stolen the computers from the bank. They felt that those thieves would lead them to the people who had tried to decimate New York City the day before. It made sense to Moss. But what the hell those terrorists had hoped to achieve?

Terror, of course. Even a relatively small explosion was enough to fill the citizens with panic. The Boston Marathon bombing had proved that. But he had the sense that there was something else going on, something far bigger than he was allowed to know about.

The level of technology and cooperation he’d witness the day before was, frankly, terrifying. That a hacker could be contacted, walk off the street, and be granted access to everything from fighter pilots to the Pentagon – that there was a protocol in place for exactly that to happen – it made his stomach churn. He was glad there _was_ such a program, glad it had worked, but what if it hadn’t?

The idea of putting the safety of the nation in the hands of Scotty Fitzgerald and her hacking buddies made his palms sweat. She was a nice lady. She made good coffee. She helped her neighborhood. But for the love of God ….

He shook his head. It had happened. The missiles had been diverted. It was over. Now it was his job to find the people behind it. _His_ job. And he had the tools to do exactly that.

He nodded in satisfaction at the command center he’d inherited from Nicholas Donnelly. Then he turned his attention to staffing it quickly.

Donnelly had trusted Detective Carter. Moss knew for himself that she was a highly capable investigator. She was in Homicide, but she knew the city well. She would be a valuable team member. Whatever hesitation he’d had about her when she was involved with Cal Beecher had been laid to rest with the detective.

It probably wouldn’t hurt to keep her partner close, too. Fusco had a decidedly spotty record, but he undeniably had Fitzgerald’s trust, and that might be important at some point in the investigation.

He’d been told in no uncertain terms that he could use whatever resources he needed. Those two were definitely resources. And invitations were clearly in order.

 ***

 

 


	8. Chapter 8

The phone vibrated on the table; Finch snagged it before the first cycle had ended. “Christine. Good morning.”

“Morning.” She sounded sleepy. “Busy?”

Finch looked toward the screen. Mr. Cutter was loading a different game. “Not at all. How are you?”

“I spent my first waking moments speaking to Very Special Agent Brian Moss. He is definitely not getting his blanket back.”

“What did he want?”

“He was very interested in the bank where I answered the rally call yesterday. Why I picked that particular location, whether I’d ever been there before. But he wouldn’t tell me what his damage was. It’s obviously related to your project, somehow. I thought you should know.”

“I appreciate that,” Finch answered. “But I was already aware of the issue.”

 “Are you planning to share?”

“Agent Moss also had an interview with Detective Fusco this morning, with questions along the same lines. Apparently the bank branch was robbed last night.”

“Robbed.”

“They took the computers and the cameras.”

“ _Yobanaya hooynya.”_

He did not ask for a translation. He could guess close enough.

“Can they find it?” Christine asked.

“No,” he answered simply.

There was a pause. “Are they following me?”

“Possibly,” Finch allowed. “But more likely they were watching for a major disruptive event, like the bomb scare evacuation of an entire building.”

Christine didn’t answer. He could picture her looking around the café – he could hear the background noise that indicated she was there – wondering which of her patrons might be stalking her.

“Christine,” he said firmly, “you are extraordinarily cautious. More so since you’ve been aware of our project. And we have been, at certain intervals, watching as well. Believe me. You are not being followed.”

“By anyone but you.”

“And John, of course.”

She growled softly. She didn’t much like that answer, either. But she changed the subject. “Are you up on the engagement plan?”

“The … oh, Will and Julie. No.”

“A week from Friday the elder Carsons will descend upon us to celebrate Senior’s birthday.”

“At the Coronet Hotel,” Finch said. “I was aware of that.”

“Will and Julie are going to announce their engagement Friday night. They will give the press all weekend to catch them liplocking all over the city, and then Monday morning they’re leaving for African again.”

Finch nodded. “That sounds like a reasonable plan. Has Miss Morgan been advised?”

“I think she’s the one who advising it, but yes, she’s onboard.”

“And Skydd. Additional security will undoubtedly be necessary.”

“Hmmm, probably, but I’ll double-check.”

“All right.”

“In the meantime,” she continued, “they’re spending their days with Sam Campanella. He’s teaching them how to run a company.”

“Oh, that is an excellent choice,” Finch said warmly. Christine had a long professional relationship with Campanella. The man had a sterling reputation for humane and ethical business practices. His employees loved him. He could not have picked a better advisor for Ingram’s new venture.

“ _You_ were his first choice,” she said, “but we both agreed that you were likely too busy. Sam’s already announced that he’s retiring next year and he’s winding down his business involvement. Also, this gives them a chance to get to know each other, with an eye toward inviting him to sit on the board.”

Harold nodded. It would have been problematic, having Will and Julie at the Universal Heritage offices with him for two weeks. It would have been impossible. But Christine had smoothly, effectively diverted them. Anticipated the problem and implemented a solution pre-emptively. “Thank you,” he said with deep sincerity.

“They will still want you on the board, of course.”

“That won’t be a problem.”

“I didn’t think so.”

“Christine, I …”

She cut him off. “Do you need help with anything?”

He looked at the screen again. Nothing had changed. “No. We have everything under control, for the moment. But thank you.”

“I’m going back to bed.”

Finch put the phone down thoughtfully. _Compiling_ , he thought again. He had very much wanted for Christine and Will Ingram to be close, for a variety of reasons. That relationship hadn’t needed nearly as much nurturing as the Reese/Fitzgerald initiative, but it was proving wildly advantageous. Mostly to himself, he had to admit, but also to both of them. Given Will and Julie’s new-minted determination to provide renewable energy throughout the Third World, this program might have results advantageous to the whole world.

He looked again at the monitor. Christine and Will were starting to fix the world. He was helping to protect a young man whose only goal in life seemed to be making the world worse.

As a rule of thumb, Finch liked to rely on the rule of law or the karmic power of the universe to correct the transgressions of people like Jason Cutter. But sometimes, just sometimes, law was ineffective and karma was inefficient. Sometimes, justice needed a little push.

He had freed the internet on the world, after all. And from his creation of social media had sprung the idea of forums. So technically, he supposed, Cutter and his misdeeds were his responsibility.

Harold Finch had always been a very responsible person.

 ***

Reese could have gotten by on two hours of sleep. He’d set his internal clock for three. When he woke, everything was quiet. Finch was intently focused on whatever he was typing. Cutter was intensely focused on his first-person shooter game. Reese went back to sleep.

Three more hours passed before he woke again. He wasn’t fully rested, but he was recharged enough to go another day or two, or perhaps three, before he needed to sleep again. He climbed out of bed and stretched slowly, thoroughly. Then he walked to the big room.

Finch was sitting back in the only cushioned chair in the living room. He had his eyes closed and his breathing was slow and even. The laptop sat beside him on the side table, and he had ear buds attached. He was asleep, but the slightest noise from Cutter’s apartment would wake him.

Reese moved silently around to look at the screen. The camera view was in the young man’s bedroom; Cutter was sprawled face-down on his bed, snoring softly.

He considered, then spoke quietly. “Finch.”

Harold woke, pushed at his glasses. He looked immediately to the monitor. “Mr. Reese?”

“Go get some real sleep,” Reese said. “I’ll watch him.”

Finch looked like he might argue. Then he stood, more stiffly than usual. “I brought some groceries,” he said, with a gesture toward the refrigerator. He went into the bedroom. If he objected to the still-warm sheets, he didn’t say so.

John carried the laptop to the tiny kitchen. There was a box on the counter with Finch’s tea gear in it; he’d also brought an espresso pot and grounds. He set it to brewing, then made himself steak and eggs for mid-afternoon breakfast.

Two more hours passed. Cutter rolled onto his side and the pitch of his snoring changed. Reese cleaned up the kitchen, made a second pot of espresso, and took up Finch’s position in the chair. He got the second laptop and scrolled through Cutter’s e-mail history. It was depressing.

Deeply depressing.   

He heard a noise and glanced toward the screen. Cutter was still asleep, unmoving. John reached out and switched camera views back to the other room.

Teddy Edwins was moving very quietly into the living room. He carried a cardboard box under his arm, about eighteen by twelve by eight. The former cop looked around, then went to the shelves. He took down the neatly-stacked towels, put the box behind them, and replaced them. He stepped back to examine his work.

He looked around again. He paused, picked up the bag with the sandwich that Cutter had tossed away. He examined the logo on it, then dropped it where he’d found it.

He didn’t look happy when he left the apartment.

Reese switched back to check on their client again. Cutter went right on sleeping.

“Finch,” he called.

He heard the bed creak. Harold joined him in the living room. His hair was rumpled, his tie loose. But his eyes were bright and alert. “What is it?”

“Edwins  just planted something in Cutter’s apartment.”

“A bomb?” Finch worried immediately.

“That’s my guess.” Reese pulled out his lock-pick set. “Be right back.”

“Mr. Reese. Please be careful.”

John grinned grimly and went across the hall.

Reese entered the apartment, then stood very still. Cutter was still snoring. He glanced over his shoulder at the hidden camera, then moved to the shelves and moved the towel. He brought the box down carefully and set it on the couch.

It was plain cardboard, not very heavy. The contents shifted when he turned it. The bottom was taped shut, but the top was folded, each flap tucked under the one next to it. He pried the center gap open a bit and looked inside. Relaxed, he pulled it all the way open.

Inside were three I-Pads, still in their boxes, still wrapped with blue presentation ribbons. There were also several stacks of small bills, held together with paper clips. Some small electronics, thumb drives and an MP3 played, some earbuds, and a laptop speaker, one of the expensive ones.

He knew the contents of the box would exactly match the list of items stolen from the Marshall Building offices.

He closed the box and replaced it. He concealed it with the towels, just as Edwins had. Then he went back across the hall.

“Mr. Edwins is framing Mr. Cutter,” Finch said.

“Can’t really say I blame him.”

“No,” Finch agreed. He gestured toward the computer with a trace of chagrin. “I – had something of a similar nature underway. On a somewhat larger scale.”

“Finch. I’m proud of you.”

“I’m not sure it’s anything to be proud of,” Harold retorted grimly.

“We’ve framed people before.”

“We’ve never framed an innocent man.”

Reese frowned. “Cutter is not innocent.”

“He’s not a criminal, either. Not technically.”

“Finch. I’ve read his e-mails. What he did to those people. _Good_ people. Caring people. He took advantage of their kindness. He has to be stopped.”

“I agree.” Finch shook his head. “But ultimately, I’m the one who provided him with the tools he used to perpetuate his cruelties. If anyone deserves to be punished, perhaps it’s me and not him.”

“For creating social media? I won’t argue with you on that.” Reese shook his head. “But Cutter made the choice about what he was going to do with it.”

“I’m just not sure that we have the right to play judge and jury with this young man’s life.”

“We could expose his real crimes instead,” Reese suggested. “Publish all his secret e-mails, let the world see what a monster he is.” He nodded. “Of course, that would also expose all the people who tried to help him as suckers and fools …”

“No,” Finch said. “No. That would only cause more harm. Some of them don’t even know yet that they were scammed, I’m sure.” He nodded, decisive again. “We’ll wait, until Mr. Edwins plays his hand, and then we’ll add to it.”

“What did you cook up?”

“Wire transfers,” Finch admitted. “Account numbers stolen from various offices in the building, wiring money into Mr. Cutter’s personal account. It’s quite crude, easily traced.”

“Cutter’s not very smart. It will fit.”

“Yes.” He still didn’t sound happy about it, but he was resigned. Decided. “He would be that careless, if he were smart enough to come up with the idea.” He frowned. “Of course, if Edwins is trying to frame him, it’s unlikely that he’s also planning to murder him.”

“Maybe Cutter will try to murder _him_ when he finds out,” Reese offered.

“We should be so lucky.”

“If he does something actually criminal, I’ll let you know. Maybe we can get around framing him after all.”

“That would be … preferable. However, I am committed to doing whatever’s necessary to stop him.”

“There’s no bomb,” Reese said. “You could go back to sleep for a while.”

Finch shook his head. “No, I think I’m quite alright, thank you.”

“Dinner?” Reese moved into the tiny kitchen.

“That would be lovely.”

While he cooked, Finch re-set his computers on the small table.

“I need to be in that building tonight.”

Finch nodded. “Already taken care of. You’ll be substituting for Mr. Vincent tonight.”

“He’s not sick, I hope?”

“His wife won tickets for dinner and a concert. Very last-minute, but fortunately you were available to cover his shift.”

“Good.”

“I haven’t heard back yet on the analysis of the coffee. The woman who brought it is Monica Bently. No criminal record. She’s worked at that deli for nine years.”

 Reese got a plate from the cupboard and checked it for cleanliness. That was an issue, int his apartment.

“And Mr. Edwins visited Cutter at the hospital yesterday.”

“Did he, now?”

“I reviewed the tape. It was a brief and cordial visit.”

John loaded the place and slid it over to Finch. “You heard from Christine?”

“She’s fine.”

“You’re sure?”

Finch nodded. He reported on the conversation he’d had with Christine, and also with Detective Fusco. “Also,” he continued, “Special Agent Moss has been placed in charge of a new federal task force.”

“After me?” Reese asked wearily.

“No.” He explained about the break-in at the bank, the theft of the computers and the cameras.

“Th terrorists are after the Machine.”

“Yes.”

“Can they find it?”

“No.”

“You’re sure?”

“Why does everyone ask me that?” Finch asked lightly. “Yes. I am quite sure that the hardware these people have stolen will not get them any closer to the Machine, either physically or virtually. But locating the thieves may lead the authorities to the people who launched the missiles. Perhaps.”

“You don’t sound convinced.”

“I’m not, particularly. This attack was exquisitely planned beforehand. I very much doubt that it was sloppy in its aftermath.”

“Decima?”

“Perhaps. Or Mr. Wesley. Or Root. Or some other party that we are not yet aware of.”

“Or the Office of Special Counsel,” Reese suggested.

Finch shook his head. “Agent Moss has had the good sense to invite our detectives to joined the task force.”

“Fusco too?”

“I believe he hopes to capitalize on his friendship with Christine.”

Reese nodded. “He’s not a bad investigator, either, really.”

“True.”

“In any case, their involvement will allow us to keep apprised of the investigation.” Finch considered. “Whoever planned this attack was extremely clever. But – a great many very talented and highly motivated men and women are now pursing them.” He nodded. “If we see an opportunity to provide assistance, of course we will. But until then, they are not our primary focus. We will leave it in the hands of the authorities.”

 John looked at him for a long moment. “I need a shower,” he finally said, and went.

 ***

Teddy Edwins paced in front of the deli. He dialed his phone, listened while it went to voice mail. He hung up and tried again. Again there was no answer.

He put his phone away and went inside. The place was quiet, just one guy behind the counter, cleaning up. They didn’t do much evening business. “Hey,” Edwins said, “you haven’t seen Monica, have you?”

The man looked up. “Monica? She works mornings.”

“She here this morning?”

“Yeah, of course. But she left early. Said she had a stomach ache.”

“Thanks.” Edwins went back outside and dialed the phone again. This time he left a voice mail. “Monica, listen, it’s Teddy. If you’re there, I need you to pick up. Come on, Monica, pick up.”

There was no answer.

“Listen, Monica. I know you’re pissed off. You got every right to be. But you’ve got to trust me. I’ve got this handled. I will take care of it. I promise you. I’ll stop him. But you have got to stop. I know you were at his apartment today. I don’t know what you’re think you’re doing. But you have to stop. You hear me, Monica? Let me handle it.’ He paused, out of words. “Call me back,” he finally finished.

He went back inside and bought a sandwich for later.

 ***

Reese put on his uniform pants and a t-shirt, but left the dress shirt off until he was ready to leave. He devoutly hated the way the fabric felt.

Finch had finished his dinner and was back on his computer. Cutter was up, moving around his apartment, getting ready for work.

Reese wandered around the room absently. He sat down and turned on the television, scanned through a hundred channels without finding a single thing to watch, and shut it off. He paced the room. There were no books. There was a stack of car magazines. He flipped through one, put it back down. Paced some more.

“There are books on your tablet,” Finch reminded him quietly.

“I know.” John went to look out the window.

“What’s bothering you, Mr. Reese?”

“Someone tried to blow up the city to get to the Machine. And we’re spending our time saving this little waste-of-skin punk.”

“Yes. But what’s _really_ bothering you?”   

There wasn’t any point in putting it off any longer. Reese dragged a chair around and sat down facing his partner across the tiny table. He wanted to be able to see his face, his expressions, his body language. “Christine.”

“I assure you, she’s quite safe.” Finch looked up from the computer. “And the Cascade is …”

“It’s not that. Although I am not happy about it.”

“It is, as she said, necessary.”

Reese accepted the necessity. He didn’t like the cause. Weaponized drones … he was letting himself be distracted. Wishing he could be distracted. “I was thinking … after we get Cutter settled … that I’d ask her out to dinner.”

Harold’s eyes never wavered. “She’s fond of steak,” he answered immediately, “and pasta. Not particularly big on seafood unless it’s deep-fried.” He shuddered in gentle disapproval. “And chocolate desserts are a must.”

“I wasn’t exactly asking for that kind of advice. But thanks.”

He frowned in confusion. “Then what _are_ you asking, Mr. Reese?”

John sat back, aware that his own face wasn’t exactly unreadable at the moment. “I guess I need to know if it’s okay. With you.”

“If you take Miss Fitzgerald to dinner?”

“If I take her on a _date_.”

“Well, yes, I understood that part of the formulation.” Finch pushed up his glasses. “You’re concerned I that would object to a potential romantic relationship between you and Miss Fitzgerald?”

Reese still couldn’t see anything in his partner’s face, no reaction beyond a very gentle bemusement. No hurt, no reluctance. But it seemed like Harold was hiding some deeper reaction. The shift to bigger words was a tell. Maybe. “Christine is your friend. You don’t let many people get as close as she is. I just need to be sure that it’s not going to screw things up. Between you and her.”

“Or between you and me?”

“Yes.”

Finch nodded. His expression grew less concerned, more amused. Still hiding something. “I appreciate your consideration, Mr. Reese. But I don’t see why it should have any effect at all.”

“Even if it ends badly?”

“Miss Fitzgerald is not the vengeful type.” Harold considered, then amended his statement. “That’s not entirely true. She can be quite … creatively vengeful, when sufficiently provoked. As our friend Miss Angelis can attest. Nonetheless, I don’t see the potential for that kind of havoc being created in this particular scenario. Her romantic relationships seem to end in a consistently civilized manner.”

_Whereas mine,_ Reese thought bleakly, _end up with someone dead._ He shook his head. “I’m kind of hoping that ‘ending’ doesn’t become an issue. That it becomes something long-term. I think.”

“You _think_?” Finch asked. For the first time his expression was unguarded. He looked frankly startled.

John looked away. He hadn’t meant to say that. “I care for her, Finch. I think I’m in love with her. But it’s … different. Than it was with Jessica.”

There was understanding on his friend’s face, and also his own pain. Harold had lost a love, too. “I imagine it must be,” he answered slowly. “No man steps in the same river twice, as it were. You are very different from the man you were then. And Christine is certainly …” He stopped. “And of course there are other considerations. Other dynamics.”

“The job,” John agreed, gesturing toward the computer. “The whole possibility – probability – of sudden death.”

“That,” Finch agreed. “But I was thinking more of Miss Fitzgerald’s resistance to enter into anything more than the most temporary of relationships.” He hesitated again. “I think you’d do well to remember that she is accustomed to … men who leave after three days.”

Reese’s expression hardened. It was the same thing Zoe had suggested. “I’m not like that, Finch.”

“I know you’re not,” Harold said quickly. “And I’m sure that _she_ knows you’re not. Intellectually. But emotional habits can be difficult to break.” He paused again. “Expectations can become so ingrained that they become self-fulfilling prophecies. And emotional defenses can very easily turn into … prisons.”

Reese studied him. It was clear that Finch was talking about himself, as much as about Christine, and that it was difficult for him. He wouldn’t make eye contact. He reached out to his keyboard, then pulled his hand back and looked up. “What her mind knows, Mr. Reese, it may yet take time for her heart to learn.” He spread his hands, wiggled his fingers as if he was reaching for words. “You may need to be more … patient … that you expect.”

John nodded. “Thank you.”

“For pointing out the obvious?”

“At this point, I’ll take any advice I can get.”

“I can scarcely be considered an expert on matters of the heart.”

“But you _are_ an expert on Christine.”

“Perhaps.” He thought about it, smiled just a little. “As much of one as exists, I suppose. She is still a woman, nonetheless, and therefore difficult to quantify or predict with any degree of accuracy.”

The big words again. “If you think this is a bad idea, Finch …” Out of nowhere, Reese became aware that he was half-hoping his partner would tell him it was.

Harold didn’t. “I think that it might be a difficult relationship in the early stages. But that with some effort and persistence, you might ultimately be very good for each other.”

“And you’re sure you’re okay with that?”

“I’ve already told you that I am.” He frowned. “It’s not like you to be uncertain, Mr. Reese.”

John shifted in his chair. “I know. I just … I think I just needed to hear it from you, out loud.”

Finch shook his head. “Miss Fitzgerald is not mine to claim, nor to give. And though she frequently accedes to my wishes, I would be highly reluctant to test the true limits of my influence over her. I can assure you that no romantic relationship between you and her would in any way impede my friendships with either of you, even if it were to end badly. Beyond that – I have only preferences, and I think those are best kept to myself at the moment.”

“Preferences?”

“They are of no importance.”

“About me and Christine?”

“Insignificant wishes, Mr. Reese.”

John leaned forward. “I’d like to hear them, anyhow.”

“It is really not my place …”

“Finch.”

“They are merely my personal … hopes, I suppose you would call them. The best possible outcome I could foresee for the two of you.”

“ _Finch_.”

Harold  hesitated, his mouth very small. Then he shrugged. “What I would _prefer_ in regards to your relationship to Miss Fitzgerald is this: If you’re certain that you wish to pursue her, than by all means do so. Woo her, win her, wed her, bed her, and father a dozen brilliant blue-eyed children on her. It would do you both a world of good, and nothing could make me happier.”

Reese stared at him, stunned. He didn’t know what he’d expected, but that certainly wasn’t it. He managed to stammer, “I was really thinking more like dinner and maybe a show.”

“Well, yes, of course, for a start.” Finch sounded exasperated, but amused. “But you take my meaning.”

“This line of work. Not really conducive to raising dozens of children.”

“Not dozens. _One_ dozen.”

“Still.”

“I could fire you. Find someone else.”

Reese studied him. The genius was teasing – mostly. But he was also cracking the door, just a little, to the more conventional life Reese had once mused about. Telling him that if it worked out with Christine and he wanted to move on, it could be arranged – no matter how impossible that seemed. John didn’t actually see that happening, ever. But it was a generous offer, genuinely made, and it was one he deeply appreciated. “Let’s just try one date first.”

“As you wish.” Finch spread his hands in resignation, but he smiled a little, too.

“Thank you, Harold.” John sat back, still stunned. He had wanted Finch’s blessing, though he hadn’t thought of it in quite those terms. He’d gotten in. Resoundingly. There was absolutely nothing now that should stand between him and Christine. No outside influence, anyhow. Nothing but his own past, and hers.

And those obstacles, he realized, were going to be the biggest obstacles of all.

Finch glanced at his screen. “Mr. Cutter is getting ready to go,” he announced.

Reese exhaled slowly. “Then I should do the same.” He put the hated shirt on, then his shoes. He strapped a gun to his ankle, pulled his pant leg down over it. He glanced up at Finch, but the genius did not comment.

When he was ready to head out the door, he paused one last time. “Harold. Thank you.”

Finch inclined his head. “Good luck, Mr. Reese. With all of your endeavors.”

 ***

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

If Cutter recognized ‘John Holt’ as the man who’d rescued him from his apartment the day before, he didn’t show it. Reese hadn’t been very concerned about it. The young man had been all but unconscious when he’d saved him.

Edwins seemed glad to see him again. They commiserated over Vincent being dragged to a sudden date night, in a good-natured way. Reese took the loading dock for the first hour. When he was alone, he contacted Finch. “What are you seeing, Finch?”

“Everything and nothing,” Finch answered. “I have access to all the cameras. Mr. Cutter is on the front desk, on his computer, of course. Mr. Edwins is currently on the tenth floor, actually doing his walk-though.”

“Keep me posted.”

“Of course.”

At midnight the men rotated posts. Cutter came back to the loading doc. Edwins took over the lobby. Reese started his own walk-around.

“Mr. Reese?” Finch said, as soon as he was alone again. “I’ve been able to access Mr. Cutter’s current internet activity.”

“Who’s he scamming now?” Reese asked. “People who rescue puppies and kittens?”

“He’s on a forum called FFPO. Families of Fallen Police Officers.”

Reese clenched his teeth. “You’re not kidding, of course.”

“I am not. I surmise that he got the idea from working with Mr. Edwins. He learned about Edwin’s partner’s death and perhaps wondered if there was a group that would be fertile ground for his brand of drama-farming.”

“Is Edwins on the forum?”

“Not that I can tell for certain, but of course a great many people don’t use their real names. Mr. Cutter joined just over a week ago. So far, he’s been a model virtual citizen. As is his habit, he’s building up good will and acceptance from the group.”

“Families of fallen police officers,” Reese growled. “This guy is the scum of the earth.”

“I can’t disagree with you, Mr. Reese.”

“Make those wire transfers bigger, Finch.”

The genius snorted, but did not answer.

 ***

Finch did, in fact, make the wire transfers larger. It wouldn’t affect the false charges that would be brought against Mr. Cutter, of course. It was simply a matter of principle.

He watched Cutter on one screen, tidied up loose ends on another. No report yet on the coffee analysis. A few incident reports on the cleaning crew, which were largely incidental now. Monica Bently. He opened his information on her and went digging.

It only took a few minutes to find something alarming. “Mr. Reese?”

“I’m here, Finch.”

“The waitress from the deli. Bently is her maiden name. Her married name was Walters.”

“And?”

“Terry Edwin’s young partner, the one who was killed, was Leyland Walters.”

“Her son?” Reese guessed.

“Checking now.” Finch’s hands flew over the keyboard with desperate precision. All the pieces were falling into place. He just hoped it wasn’t too late.

 ***

Edwins had barely gotten settled behind the security console when he heard a soft tap on the north entrance door. He grumbled; usually it was a lost tourist, a stranded motorist, sometimes a bum. But this time …

He stood and hurried to open the door. “Monica, what the hell are you doing here?”

Monica stepped into the lobby. “Teddy. I got your message.”

“It’s the middle of the night. You can’t be …”

“I need to see him.”

“Cutter? No.”

“I need to talk to him.”

“Monica, it’s a bad idea. What good would it do?”

She looked at him, her face bleak. “He killed Leyland.”

“Monica …”

“I just want to talk to him. I want to tell him what he did, to his face. I want him to know. I want to _know_ he knows. I want to see it. Can’t you understand that?”

“But …”

“Teddy, please. I need to talk to him. I need to … get this over with, once and for all.”

Edwins sighed heavily. “This is it, then? I let you talk to him, and then you’ll try to let this go? To move on?”

“I promise, Teddy. Just let me see him, and then … it’ll be done.”

Edwins looked around the lobby. It was empty, of course. The doors were locked. The new guy was upstairs; they could confront Cutter and get Monica out before he came down for his next post. Let her have her moment with him. Let her scream at him if she needed to.

Cutter was such a dumb ass he didn’t even know what he’d done. He needed to know. Monica deserved that. Leyland deserved it.

He could let Monica have her say, and in the morning he’d throw a frame around Cutter and that would be the end of it.

“Come on,” he said. He checked the door behind her, then led her to door to the access hall and used his keycard to open it.

 ***

“Mr. Reese?” Finch’s voice was decidedly urgent. “Yes, Monica is Leyland’s mother. And more importantly, Mr. Edwins has just let her into the building.

“They’re working together,” Reese answered grimly.

“They’re headed to the loading dock.”

“On my way.” He sprinted to the elevators. “Send me access.”

 ***

Finch watched in horrified fascination as the former police officer and the waitress came onto the loading dock. Cutter was behind the little desk with his feet up and his computer balanced against his knees. He stood up quickly when the door opened.

The voices over the surveillance system were tinny and echoed oddly, but Finch could hear the discussion clearly enough. “Hey. What’s up?”

“Cutter,” Edwins said firmly, “this is Monica.”

The young man nodded. “We allowed to bring our girlfriends to work now?” he attempted to tease.

Finch grabbed his other keyboard. “Mr. Reese?”

“Almost there,” Reese answered “What are they doing?”

“Just talking, so far.”

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Edwins said evenly. “She’s the mother of a fallen police officer.”

“Oh.” Cutter’s face fell. “This is about the forum, isn’t it? Look, I didn’t mean any harm. I just, you know, you talked about your partner and I wanted to, um, to see if I could help, maybe …”

“You’re lying.”

“Okay. Okay, you got me. I’m, um, I’m doing some research. I’m thinking about writing a book, and I thought if I could get to know some family members, you know … not to use them, but just to get a sense of their stories, how they are, you know?”

“Cutter,” Edwins said, “shut up.”

“You killed my son,” Monica said.

“I … what? No. I didn’t kill anybody. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Her son,” Edwins said. “My partner. Leyland Walters. He was twenty-four years old. We were answering a call. A young girl threatening suicide. He was driving. Drove way too fast. But he wanted to save the girl. He had to save her. And we hit ice, and we hit a pole, and Leyland died. You get it now?”

“No,” Cutter said. “No. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Your name was Diane,” Monica said coldly. “Your screen name was LadyDi. You said you were fifteen and your step-father was sexually abusing you. You said he got you pregnant and was going to force you to have an abortion the next morning. You said you were going to kill yourself because you couldn’t stand it anymore. The other people on the forum panicked. They were afraid for you.”

“And one of them,” Edwins added, “happened to have the resources to trace your IP address. So she called the police. With this address. Leyland and I got the call.”

 ***

“Mr. Reese, are you hearing this?” Finch asked in his ear.

“I’m hearing it,” Reese said grimly. He’d left the elevator on the second floor and ran down the stairs to the ground level; he didn’t want to risk them hearing him. He hurried down the access hall and stopped just outside the door to the loading dock. Then he stepped to the side of the door and studied the scene on his phone. “I’m not seeing any weapons so far.”

“So far. But I remind you …”

“The Machine doesn’t notify us about people who are just going to talk? I know, Finch.” Reese studied the door. It was closed tight, which meant it was locked. His key card would get him through it, but it wouldn’t be quiet. There was another entrance to the dock on the other side, but it would take time to get there, and the door was locked the same way. He would need to swipe his card and crash the door. He needed the pert p to be in just the right place.

And he didn’t know yet who the perp was going to be.

He stayed clear of the small window and watched.

 ***

Finch grabbed his cell phone and dialed. “Lab,” a bored man answered on the fourth ring.

“This is Detective Fusco,” Finch lied, “Badge number 7645. I sent a sample over for analysis earlier today and I wondered if you had the results yet.”

The bored man sighed heavily. “If the results were up, they would have sent you an e-mail.”

“I’m not able to access my computer at this time,” Finch snapped. “Please read me the results.”

“Yeah, yeah, hang on.”

 ***

Cutter put one hand on his hip. “Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t do anything. And even if I did, even if you could prove it – it’s not illegal. I didn’t take anybody’s money.”

“You killed my son,” Monica said.

“Sounds to me like he killed himself.”

Edwin bristled. “Shut your mouth, Cutter.”

“Do you know?” Monica asked. “Why he was so desperate to save you? To save ‘Diane’? Do you?”

“Because he was a good cop?” Cutter said, with a hint of a sneer.

“Because his sister killed herself when she was fifteen.”

 ***

In the hallway, Reese stiffened. He studied the view on his phone again, then chanced a peek through the window. The three were standing in a triangle, about five feet from each other. Cutter was to the right of the door, Edwins to the left. Monica was furthest away, facing them. “Not good,” Reese muttered. “Not good.”

 ***

“You still there, Detective?” the bored man from the lab said.

“I am,” Finch snapped. “Do you have the results?”

“Yeah. And you aren’t going to like it.”

 ***

“His sister died,” Monica said. “He didn’t want anyone else to go through what he did. What we did. So he would have done anything to help her. You understand that? He thought you were like her. He thought he could save you. And he got killed for nothing. For _nothing_.”

“I’m real sorry for your loss,” Cutter said. He sounded a little scared now, but his tone was still dismissive. “But it was his choice. I was just messing around. He didn’t have to get killed on my account.”

“You’re not even a little bit sorry, are you?” Edwins asked, incredulous.

“I knew he wouldn’t be,” Monica said in disgust. “I knew.”

She reached into her coat pocket, pulled out a gun, and pointed it at Cutter.

 ***

“Mr. Reese?” Finch said, his voice edged with panic.

“I see it,” Reese said. “No way to get to her yet.” He thought again about going around to the door behind her. But it would take too long, and it would still be too loud. He drew his own weapon from his ankle holster, gripped it and the key card in one hand, and held up his phone with the other. “I’ll have to wait for an opening.”

“Don’t wait too long,” Finch cautioned. “She’s already tried to kill him twice.”

“The furnace vent?”

“More than likely. And definitely the arsenic in his coffee.”

Reese turned so that his hand hovered just over the scanner for the door.

 ***

“Monica, what are you doing?” Edwins demanded. “You said you just wanted to talk to him.”

“Talk to him? Did you hear him? There’s no point in talking to him. He killed Leyland and he doesn’t even care. I’m done talking to him.”

“Monica, listen to me. I know he’s a shitheel, I know. But this isn’t the way to fix this. I have a plan, okay? I’ll make sure he goes to jail. I’ve got this handled.”

“I’m not going to jail,” Cutter protested. “I didn’t break any laws.”

“Shut up!” Edwins snapped.

“She’s not going to shoot me,” the young man said. “I know what this is. She threatens me, you save me, and then I’m supposed to turn my life around, right? Scared straight? Well it’s not going to work. I’ll do whatever the hell I want and you can’t stop me. So put the gun away. I’m leaving.”

He strode to the door. Reese flattened himself against the wall.

“You’re not going anywhere!” Monica shouted. She raised the gun higher.

“Monica.” Edwins stepped toward her. “I’m not going to let you kill him.”

“He killed Leyland!”

“No,” Edwins said sadly. “No, Monica. Leyland hit that pole all by himself. Cutter wasn’t in the car with us.”

The woman began to cry. “But he …”

“Monica. Put the gun away. I won’t let you kill him. No matter how much he deserves it. I’ll take care of it. I’ll make sure he goes to jail. But he’s not worth wasting the rest of your life over. That’s not what Ley would have wanted and you know it.”

“But …”

“Put it away. Please.”

The woman lowered her gun, very slowly.

“I knew it!” Cutter said. “I knew she wouldn’t do it!”

The gun came back up.

Edwins reached for it, grabbed her wrist, pulled the weapon down. “Let it go, Monica. Just let it go.”

She released the weapon into his hand.

Cutted lunged at the former cop. Edwins jerked backward, gasping, and fell.

“Knife,” Finch said in his ear, but Reese was already throwing the door open.

The woman and Cutter froze for an instant. Edwins continues his slow slump towards the floor. There was a blooming red stain on the back of his sky-blue shirt. “There was no one at the front desk,” Reese announced. He grabbed Cutter’s hand – knife and all – and threw him into the wall.

Monica bent and grabbed her gun from Edwin’s hand. Reese took her wrist and bent it until she dropped it again.

Cutter came at him from behind. He might have been aiming for the woman. It didn’t matter. Reese half-turned and sheltered her. He felt the knife blade scrape along the back of his arm. He kept moving, shoving Monica in front of him. The door was still half open. He pushed her through and pulled it shut behind her. The he turned to deal with Cutter.

The young man had a wild look in his eyes, more frightened than dangerous. He dropped into a wide crouch, his hands out to his sides. No doubt it was something he’d seen in his video games. Reese was not impressed. He moved fast, into Cutter’s body, and threw two punches into his soft belly before the man got his arms down. Then he grabbed the elbow of Cutter’s knife arm, twisted, and threw him head-first against the wall again.

This time Cutter dropped and didn’t get up.

Monica shouted and pounded on other side of the locked door.

Reese went and turned Edwins over. The man was dazed but conscious. He was bleeding pretty heavily from the knife wound in his shoulder, but he was breathing okay and didn’t seem to be in immediate danger. John looked around, then crossed the dock and opened a cabinet of cleaning supplies. There was a stack of clean rags. He grabbed a handful and returned to the injured man.

“Here,” he said, helping him to sit up. He put one rag over the wound and pressed it hard with the heel of his hand. “You’ll be okay.”

“Monica …”

“She’s fine.” He glanced toward the door. The woman was jumping to peer through the window, and she was still pounding on it, shouting, but she was safe. “Not happy, but fine.”

He stood up and walked over to Cutter. The young man was stirring, but not much. There was a big bruise darkening on his forehead. Reese used a zip tie to secure his hands behind him, then dropped him back to the floor.

He tugged his collar open and shoved a rag over his shoulder and down his shirt sleeve. He couldn’t see much of the wound on his arm; it was all on the back. It stung, and seemed to go from his shoulder all the way to his elbow, but it wasn’t bleeding very much.

“Mr. Reese,” Finch said tightly in his ear. “You need to turn around.”

Reese turned back to Edwins.

The former police officer had his weapon aimed at him.

“What?” Reese asked calmly.

“Monica,” Edwins said. His face was full of regret and determination.

John gestured toward the door. The woman was still shouting, though her voice was going hoarse.

“She wouldn’t have killed him,” Edwins said.

“I know.”

“Who are you?”

“Put the gun down, Edwins.”

“You a cop?”

“No.”

“She wouldn’t have killed him,” he said again. “I can’t let you turn her in.”

Reese nodded calmly. “You in love with her?”

“No. It’s not like that. Not that it matters. I got to protect her. I owe that to her. To Leyland. I’m really sorry you walked into this. Really. But I can’t let you hurt her. Can’t let anybody hurt her.”

“John …” Harold said.

Reese tapped off his earpiece. He crouched on his heels in front of the man. The gun didn’t waver, but it didn’t worry him much. “Tell me about Monica.”

“She’s all I got left.”

John waited.

Edwins shifted so he was sitting a little more upright. He fussed with the makeshift bandage. His eyes never left Reese’s. “You hear about guys sometimes, in the department, lone wolves. The ones who go it alone, you know? But me? I could never be one of them. Never been any good on my own.”

Reese nodded his understanding.

“I played football in high school. I was never much good, never a starter, but those were my guys, you know? My team. I was one of them. One of the pack. And then I joined the Army, and my unit was my team. Even the guys that were tools, the loud mouths, the idiots -- they were still my guys.”

His eyes flicked toward the door. Monica had stopped shouting. She still pounded on the door, but at a much slower rate. Rhythmic, token protest.

“I had a family,” Edwins went on. “A wife, kids. And the force. I had a big pack then. All the company I needed. Then my wife died, my kids moved away – but I still had the force, you know? Still had my brothers in blue?”

“And Leyland,” Reese prompted.

Edwins smiled softly. “Ley was a good kid. Young. God, he was young. But smart. He would’ve made detective in no time. Good kid. And he didn’t have anybody much, either. His sister killed herself, and then his dad left, it was just him and his mom. Monica. So I – I took him under my wing, I guess. Good kid.” He nodded. “This one time, Monica blew a tire out on the GWB while we were on duty. We drove out there and changed it for her. Ley was all worried we’d get in trouble, that I’d be mad at him. And I told him. I told him. She’s your family. That makes her my family. We take care of each other. That’s what family does. What the pack does.

“And now Ley’s gone, my badge is gone. All I got left is Monica.” He raised the gun a little. “I got her protect her. I’m real sorry. But she’s family.”

Reese stood up. “Put the gun away, Edwins. You’re not going to shoot me. Or him.”  

“I have to. He’ll tell …”

“Doesn’t matter. Here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to go upstairs and steal one more I-Pad. I’ll bring it to you, and then I’ll take Monica home. When we’re gone, you’re going to call the police. You’re going to tell them that you caught Cutter stealing, you confronted him, and he attacked you with a knife. You subdued him. That’s all. Whatever story he tells – you’re a retired cop with a good reputation, and he’s a punk kid with a box of stolen property in his apartment.”

Edwin’s jaw dropped. “Who _are_ you?”

“I can’t be here when the cops show up,” Reese continued. “You’re going to tell them you were working short tonight. Holt was supposed to cover for Vincent, but he called off at the last minute. Stomach flu. You sent an e-mail to the head office two hours ago.”

“But … the cameras …”

“We’ll fix the footage. The only ones who have been in the building tonight are you and Cutter. The police won’t ask many questions anyhow.”

“But …”

“Put the gun away.”

Edwins did.

Reese opened the door and let Monica in. He took her gun, gave Edwin Cutter’s knife, and went upstairs. On the way, he tapped his earpiece again. “Finch? You up on this?”

“I am, Mr. Reese. On the cameras now. How badly are you injured?”

“Not as bad as it looks.”

There was a pause. “You know that we’re releasing a woman who’s attempted murder no less than three times.”

“Yes.”

“I suppose Mr. Cutter will be charged with attempted murder in her place.”

“That’s the plan.” Reese reached the office, found the stash of client I-Pads, and snagged one. “If it’s any comfort, he _did_ attempt to murder us.”

“All right.” Then, “I suppose the wire transfers are unnecessary now.”

“Might as well send them anyhow.”

“Very well.”

Reese grinned. He went back down, got his things from his locker, and returned to the loading dock.

Edwins was on his feet, with Monica hovering at his side. Cutter was a little more awake, but he wouldn’t give them any trouble. Reese passed the package over to the retired cop and slipped on his coat. “Give us a few minutes to get clear,” he said.

“Who _are_ you?” Edwins asked again.

John thought about it. “I’m a guy who lost his pack, too,” he finally said. “And who was lucky enough to find a new one.”

He took Monica’s arm and led her out into the night.

 ***


	10. Chapter 10

“Mr. Reese?” Finch worried in his ear. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

“I’m fine, Finch,” Reese answered. “A couple band-aids will fix it. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“I’ll call you if we receive another Number. Otherwise you might take the opportunity to … sleep in.”

Which meant, Reese knew, that his partner knew damn well that he was standing outside Christine Fitzgerald’s door. “Thanks, Finch.” He tapped his earpiece off. Then he turned his phone off, for all the good that would do. He knocked on the door.

There was a little delay, a bit of movement inside the apartment before the door opened. She hadn’t asked who it was, but Reese was certain she’d checked one of her cameras before she unlocked the door. Christine was barefoot, wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt, clearly ready for bed. But she smiled warmly, glad to see him as always. “Hey, John.”

“Hey,” he said calmly, “can I use your first aid kit?”

“Yeah.” Wary now, she gestured him toward the bathroom. He felt her hands on his back; she peeled his overcoat off as they moved. She spotted the bloodstains on his shirt, the crude bandage stuffed in his sleeve. “Knife or gun?” she asked, unalarmed.

“Knife.”

Reese sat down on the closed toilet seat and unbuttoned his shirt. He tossed it and the bloody rag into the bathtub. Christine got out her big first aid box, and also the smaller wooden box that he knew held acupuncture needles. “We don’t need those,” he said.

“We’ll see.” She tugged his t-shirt out from his waistband, pulled it over his head, and threw it in the tub, too.

She put one hand on his bare shoulder and pushed until he half-turned, so his back was to the light and she could see the long slash on the back of his arm. She made an unhappy little noise and opened the cupboard to get a clean washcloth.

This wasn’t the romantic dinner Reese had planned. Not at all the circumstances he’d hoped to have her undressing him in. Yet maybe this was better. If he was going to ask her to be in a relationship with him, maybe it was best that she knew _exactly_ what she was getting into – not in theory, but in actual bloody reality.

Not that she was any stranger to violence to begin with.

He twisted his head to see the wound as well as he could. As he’d guessed, it was long, starting just below his left shoulder and running nearly to his elbow, and it gaped wide, but it wasn’t deep. The bleeding had mostly stopped. Still, he could see how a civilian would find it gruesome. “You can just throw a bandage on it,” Reese offered. He could call Finch back, have the genius stitch him up.

“Hush.” She pulled on a pair of sterile gloves, got the washcloth damp, and dabbed briskly at both sides of the wound, removing most of the dried blood. Then she opened an alcohol wipe. Reese tensed, but she swabbed an area over his shoulder blade, well away from the open wound. It was cold. Her hands were warm.

Christine addressed his injury with appropriate concern and effective action, not with panic or alarm. Exactly as he’d expected.

She opened the wooden box, took out a pack of needles and tore it open. Reese picked one up, turned it between his fingers. It was very fine, light. Sharp. Nothing at all like the long, thick needles he’d been tortured with … “You don’t need to do this,” he said. “Just stitch it. I’m tough. I can take it.”

Christine shuddered delicately. “We are not barbarians, John. Have you had acupuncture before?”

“Not exactly.”

“It won’t block the sensation entirely. It just quiets things down.”

“Can I still pull a trigger if I have to?”

“If you have to,” she answered, amused. “But I have pretty thick doors. I doubt anyone’s getting in. Unless it’s me you’re worried about.”

“I’m always worried about you.”

“I’ll try to control myself.”

He tensed again when she moved the first needle behind him, out of his line of sight. He trusted her, of course. And he knew, realistically, that the slender needle couldn’t hurt him like Kohl’s beastly tools had. But the anxiety was still there. He waited for the tiny prick. It never came.

She reached past him for another needle. “You drop it?” he asked.

“No.” He felt a little tap of pressure. No prick. Fingertips, nothing more.

His shoulder felt very warm in a circle about the size of a quarter. As she put more needles in, the warmth spread. It stretched all the way from his spine to the top of his shoulder. Then it began to flow down his arm.

The pain in the cut hadn’t been intolerable, but as the warmth hit it the discomfort grew muted. It wasn’t numb, precisely. It was just dulled, exactly as she’d said. Distant, somehow. Reese felt himself relax. He felt calm. Sleepy.

“Mmm-hmm,” Christine said quietly. “Told’ja so. Here, do this.” She lifted his right arm and put his elbow on the counter, then pushed his hand down so his whole forearm rested there. Then she brought up his left arm, more carefully, and tucked his left wrist under his right one. It held his upper arm parallel to the floor, so she could work on the long cut easily. It wasn’t uncomfortable. Nothing was uncomfortable.

She took her gloves off and touched his neck just at the base of his hairline. Her fingers were very warm. She worked them for a moment, massaging the tight muscles on each side of his spine. Then she opened her palm and pushed his head down gently. He leaned, rested his cheek on his forearm. He could see her from that angle, sideways. But his eyes were very heavy.

He felt almost drugged, but without any of the anxiety that would have provoked. If he had to, he could snap back to full awareness. But he didn’t have to. He was safe here. Christine would take care of him.

She rummaged in the bigger first aid box and brought out new supplies. Then she put on new gloves. She smoothed antibiotic cream along the wound, then squeezed the edges together and applied half a dozen butterfly bandages. Reese felt all of it, but nothing hurt. “Those won’t hold,” he said mildly. “You’re gonna have to do sutures.”

“Yes, dear.” She picked up the first of the sutures and threaded it confidently through his skin. He felt a tiny prick on each side, nothing more.

She put stitches on each side of each butterfly and then in between those. The bandages, he realized, held the edges of the wound together and kept the stiches from pulling while she worked.

“You’ve done this before,” he murmured.

“Once or twice.”

She worked quickly, efficiently, but gently. John made a mental note to come to her for stitches from now on. Her method was far less painful than Finch’s, and she didn’t harangue at him as she worked.

Obviously she’d done it more than just once or twice. “Who else have you stitched?”

“Junkies. Homeless guys. Men who got in fights over me. Twice.”

“Hmmm.”

That should have bothered him, Reese knew. It didn’t. Not at all. Of course, in his current condition _nothing_ bothered him very much. But now that he was relaxed, things became clear to him. He was half-naked, alone with Christine. Her hands touched him. Her scent filled his head, Ivory soap and something faintly like peppermint. Clean and good. He could feel the warmth of her body along his back. He was comfortable, safe, relaxed. “I don’t want to kiss you,” he said simply.

Her hands never hesitated. “Well, I also accept payment in beer,” she answered easily. ”But this is a lot of stitches, so we’re talking imported stout, not piss-water domestic lager, okay?”

John smiled and let his eyes drift shut. “Okay.” Then something occurred to him. “You’re not even surprised.” That was not good, actually; it meant that he’d misread _her_ feelings, perhaps badly. He’d been so wrapped up in trying to sort out his own feelings that he hadn’t given much thought to hers. Maybe letting someone hang around in the wake of a traumatic experience didn’t precisely equal wanting to spend the rest of her life with that person.

But it didn’t matter now, he supposed.

“I’d have been more surprised if you _did_ want to kiss me,” Christine said.

He opened his eyes, tried to force himself to more awareness. “Why?”

“Why would I be surprised?” Her voice was still casual. She wasn’t upset. “Because like our late Agent Donnelly, you have an invisible tattoo on your forehead that reads, ‘I need a commitment’.”

“Do I?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.” Though he knew she wasn’t being literal, he moved to brush his fingertips across his forehead.

“Don’t wiggle,” she said.

“I have good posture and shiny shoes,” he argued. “I could get Harold to write me a three-day pass.” He flinched; he probably shouldn’t have said that last part.

“You could,” she agreed easily. “And if you wanted to do that, I would love to spend a long weekend in bed with you.”

On a purely physical level, that sounded wonderful to Reese. But on an emotional one, it felt oddly disturbing. He still couldn’t identify the problem. “But?”  

“But come Monday morning, I suspect you’d be miserable.”

“When you kicked me to the curb.”

Christine chuckled. “Nah. I’d just ease you out the door.”

“Because you couldn’t love a man like me.” _A monster like me_ , he thought, but he managed to bite it back.

She leaned and kissed his temple. “Because I can’t love _anybody,_ John.”

Her voice was gentle and sad, and he hurt for her. “Why?” He lifted his head a little. “Why are you so sure of that?”

She used her forearm to push his head back down, very gently. “You know what a love map is?”

“I’ve heard the term.”

“Psychological theory. Basically it says that how you’re loved in your childhood dictates how you give and receive love as an adult. And frankly, mine is totally fucked.”

“Because of your mother?”

Christine made a little dismissive noise. “She never loved me. My father did. As well as he could.” She put the scissors down. “Which wasn’t very well.”

“But …”

“John.” She spread one of the suture wrappers on the counter, began to remove the acupuncture needles and drop them onto it. “You are a beautiful man, body and soul. And I love you.” She bent to kiss him again, this time on the cheek. “But I can’t be what you need, and you know it as well as I do.”

He closed his eyes. He did know. And he couldn’t be what she needed; he didn’t even know what that was. Neither did she. But he did love her, too, in a way he still didn’t understand. “Christine.”

She ran a damp gauze over his shoulder where the needles had been. He knew they were gone, but the warmth and dulled sensation didn’t fade. “Best I can do,” she announced, cleanly changing the subject.

Reese straightened slowly. As she swept all the wrappers into the trash can, he stood up and looked over his shoulder to study the cut in the mirror. The stitches were tiny, neat and even. “Very nice.”

Christine smiled. “So I get my advanced first aid badge?”

“Intermediate,” he corrected. “For the advanced you have to jump-start someone’s heart with a car battery.”

“Oh, that sounds like fun.”

He touched her hand. “Christine …”

“Why don’t you grab a shower while you’re still numb,” she said, in a tone that made it clear it wasn’t a suggestion. “Then I’ll put a light dressing on it.”

“Probably a good idea.”

She gathered his torn clothes out of the tub. “I’ll get you some clean clothes. Are you staying, or do you want street clothes?”

He looked at her. Her eyes were sad, but calm. She looked away.

She didn’t want to talk about it.

He didn’t blame her. But he wasn’t ready to let it go. “I’d like to stay.”

Christine nodded, snagged his discarded clothes out of the tub, and slipped past him out of the bathroom.

 ***

Donnelly was exhausted when he got back to his live-in hotel room. He couldn’t remember exactly when he’d slept, but it had been a long while ago.

He showered, dried off, put on sweat pants. Then he sat down in front of the computer. “Asena. You okay?”

Y/N: Y

“We did good work today. We’ll catch these guys.”

The computer did not answer. He hadn’t asked a question. He hesitated a long time. Then he said, very quietly, “Show me the girl. Please.”

There was a long pause, and then the message came up:

Locate SUBJECT: FITZGERALD, CHRISTINE B.

STATUS: NO SURVEILLANCE IMAGE AVAILABLE

“Do you know where she is?”

The computer showed him a map, then zoomed in and placed a star over the location he knew was the Chaos Café.

“Is she safe?”

THREAT DETECTED:  As always, a status bar appeared under the text. It was all red, at 100%, but it slid downward swiftly, stopping at 2.3%.

Donnelly frowned. It was usually a steady 17%, based soled on the fact that she lived in New York City. 2.3% was in the range of random-act-of-God risk level. He considered, then asked, “Is she with John Reese?”

 Y/N: Y

He nodded grimly. He didn’t like it, of course. Didn’t approve – not that anyone had asked him. But he was certain of one thing: With Reese beside her, Christine would be absolutely safe from pretty much everything short of a lightning strike.

He stood up and stretched. “Good night, Asena.”

GOOD-NIGHT, SWEET PRINCE; AND FLIGHTS OF ANGELS SING THEE TO THY REST.

Donnelly raised an eyebrow at the screen. “You really need to get out more, sweetheart.”

 ***

Reese stood under the hot spray and watched his blood swirl down the drain. The cut would probably bleed again, a little, but it was worth it to be clean. The heat soothed his other muscles; the blood and grime washed away. He used Christine’s shampoo; it was where her peppermint scent came from.

They weren’t going to be lovers. He was undeniably relieved about that. From the moment he’d acknowledged the whole idea, it hadn’t felt right. He still didn’t know quite why. It wasn’t some sense of loyalty to Zoe, or some fear that Harold wouldn’t approve. It was something in _him_ , something that was vaguely repelled by the idea of having a sexual relationship with her. It felt simply wrong. And now that it was irrevocably off the table, he was glad.

He called her ‘Kitten’ and she let him. He should have known their relationship wasn’t going to be sexual, just from that little detail.

But he loved the woman. And if they weren’t going to be lovers, he didn’t know what they _were_ going to be.

He’d been friends with women. Partners with women. This wasn’t like that. It was more certain, somehow. More stable. No matter what he did, no matter how horrible, he knew that Christine would forgive him. Care for him. Love him.

The only other person he’d ever felt that unconditional acceptance from was Finch.

And – his mother.

Christine wasn’t Finch. It was a different.

She damn sure wasn’t his mother. But there was some note of truth there.

He thought back to what Edwins had said. _We take care of each other. That’s what family does. What the pack does._

And somewhere, once, he remembered seeing a plaque on the wall of a chain restaurant. A Robert Frost quote. _Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in._

Christine was home. Family. Finch was family, too. But Christine was different. Gentler, sweeter. Softer. Less secret and distant. More touchable, physically and emotionally. She was more open about her feelings, which let him be more open, too.

_Kitten._

Reese chuckled to himself. It made sense, now, that the idea of having sex with her was vaguely sickening. And it wasn’t surprising that he hadn’t recognized the feelings he had for her.

He’d been an only child.

He’d never had a sister before.

 ***

While he was getting dressed – his own sweat pants and t-shirt, which seemed to be standard issue Finch-operative-sleepwear – she rapped on the bathroom door. “You hungry? I could make you a sammich.”

“A sammich?” he repeated.

“Yup.”

“Okay.”

When he came out, she was in her little kitchen. She pushed a mug of tomato soup over to him. It was thin, rich and very spicy. “Deli down the street,” she announced, before he could comment.

“It’s good.”

She made grilled cheese sandwiches, with sharp cheddar and mellow brie on thick Italian bread, two for him and one for her. They were delicious, and he was much hungrier than he’d thought.

When Christine finished eating, she went back to the bathroom and returned with gauze, tape, and the antibiotic ointment. Reese pulled up his shirt sleeve and let her dress the cut. “You’re good at this.”

“Thanks. I threw your shirts away.”

“That’s fine.”

She gestured toward the coat rack, where his overcoat hung inside out. “I wiped down the inside of the sleeve. It should be okay, but you might want to have it cleaned.”

“I’ll have Finch take a look.”

“You want a beer?”

“Sure.”

Reese finished his sandwich, rinsed his dishes and loaded them in the dishwasher. Then he picked up his beer, led her to the couch and sat down next to her. “You want to tell me what happened?”

“What happened when?”

He looked at her steadily. “It took me a while, but I’ve learned to recognize when you’re grieving. Your wounds are older than mine. But they’re bleeding fresh tonight. And it’s not because of the shooting, and it’s not because of the missiles. It’s something else. So what happened?”

Christine dropped her eyes, toyed with her beer bottle. There was a very long silence. Reese thought she wasn’t going to answer, and he prepared himself to let her, though that was difficult. Finally, though, she sighed and half-turned, pulled her leg up on the couch under her.

“You know that I was an intern at IFT, the summer before my father was shot?”

“I know.”

“I …” She shook her head, started her story back further. “I used to be Catholic. My dad used to take me to church when he could. When he was stable, and when I wasn’t too bruised up.”

Reese forced himself to be still, to keep the anger off his face.

“The priest, the nuns, they knew what was going on, what my home life was like. They didn’t … interfere. It wasn’t Church policy.” She let out a slow, uneven breath. “But they got me scholarships to parochial schools. Scholarships to buy uniforms. To buy lunches. They helped me as well as they thought they could.”

John nodded, still fighting to keep his expression calm, open.

“IFT had college interns before, but I was there the first year they had high school kids. You had to be nominated by your school, and then you had to write an essay. I wrote a really good one. Even now, it’s really good. But also …” she hesitated, took a deep breath, “also someone from the Church leaned on Nathan Ingram to get me in.”

“From what Harold said,” John offered, “you deserved the spot, regardless.”

She shrugged. “The thing is … you know I’m going through Ingram’s documents for Will?” He nodded. “I found Nathan’s notes about the interns. About me.”

Reese felt an almost overwhelming urge to simply grab her and hug her, close and tight. He clenched his hand around his beer bottle instead. She didn’t need that, not right now. She needed him to sit still and listen.

“He knew. About my mother, about my father. And he … didn’t know how to help. He didn’t want to embarrass me. He didn’t want me to be uncomfortable, because he didn’t want me to leave the program. He didn’t know what to say. So he …”

Christine stopped. Tears glistened in her eyes, and she blinked them back. Her back teeth ground together. It took her a long moment to get herself under control. “He went out of his way to be available. He had lunch with us every week. He tried to be in the lobby when we came in. Found excuses to be in the elevator with us, in the hallways.” She bit her bottom lip. “He told us … he told his assistant that any of us could talk to him, any time. He gave us his private cell phone number. All of us, not just me. So I wouldn’t be …”

The tears began to trickle down her cheeks. “All I had to do was _ask_. He would have helped me. He _wanted_ to help me. He gave me every chance in the world. All I had to do was stop being so prideful and so stubborn and so sure that I was smarter than everyone else and I had everything under control … all I had to do was _ask_. I couldn’t save my father, but Nathan Ingram could have, could have just picked up his phone and … all I had to do was … open my mouth and ask. Just speak. And I didn’t do it.”

John reached across the space between them and brushed her tears with his fingertips. That only made her cry harder, of course. “And that’s why Chrissy isn’t allowed to have nice things,” she finished simply. “Because she doesn’t take care of them.”

Reese shook his head. “You were a child. You should never have been expected to take care of him.” He tugged her arm gently and she moved across the couch, let him cuddle her against his side. It felt right, to have his arm around her shoulders, to feel her tears soak through his shirt. He stroked her hair and let her cry.

The change in her since the shooting made sense now. She’d learned what her stubborn independence had cost her, and she was genuinely trying to change. To accept help that she didn’t necessarily _need_ , but which was offered from genuine caring.

Zoe Morgan had told him once that no woman alive could fix what was wrong with him. He’d been inclined to agree at the time. But he _was_ healing, slowly, and though she couldn’t see it right now, so was Christine.

She was hurting, but she was also growing.

Her tears didn’t last long. Reese guessed that she’d already had a good long cry – or several – about what she’d learned. When she quieted, he spoke without preamble. “When the Towers came down, I was in a hotel in Mexico with a woman named Jessica. I was in love with her. Really in love, maybe for the first time in my life.”

Christine shifted, looked up at him. He pressed a kiss on her forehead and went on. “I told her that I’d resigned from the Army. That I wanted to make a life with her. I thought marriage, kids, maybe buy a boat. Happy ever after.” He paused, looked across the room at nothing. “And then I went to order more tequila and she turned on the television. We watched the Towers fall together.”

“John …” Christine tightened her arm across his chest. Even in her own pain, she tried to comfort him. But he needed to get the story out.

“I gave up that life right then. That life I wanted with Jessica. I re-upped in the Army. I told her not to wait for me. Because I knew I was going to war, and I didn’t think I was coming back. I wanted her to find someone who would take care of her. Who would be there for her. I told her not to wait, and I went off to war.”

He drew a deep breath. “And Jessica … moved on.”

It hurt, more than he’d expected it to. It wasn’t as if he’d forgotten, not for a day, for an hour. But it was hard to speak the words. Only his conviction that Christine needed to hear them let him continue.

“A couple years later I got recruited by the Agency. On my way to my first assignment, I ran into Jessica in an airport. She had an engagement ring. She was going to marry this guy named Peter Arndt. But she still … she still loved me. She told me, point blank, all I had to do was ask, and she’d end the engagement and wait for me.” He looked down at Christine. “All I had to do was speak, and she would have waited. But I was too stubborn. Too prideful. Too sure I knew what was best for her. So I kept my mouth shut.

“She married Peter. And I guess they were happy. For a while.” He kept going, as fast as he could. “And then he beat her to death.”

Christine moved suddenly, turned and put both arms around him. She held on, tight. He held her back. There was nothing else to do, nothing to say.

If he hadn’t been certain of their relationship before, he was then.

When he could bear to move, he shifted and she slid back down beside him. “We,” Christine announced, “are a fucking mess.”

John nodded. “We are. But at least we’re a mess together.”

They were quiet for a long time. It felt good, just to hold her. He was grieving, his old wounds open again, like hers, but it was good not to be alone. Not to have left her alone. “You’re wrong, you know.”

“Hmmm?”

“You said you couldn’t be what I needed. But you _are_ what I need, Kitten. Right now, just like this.” He tipped his head to look down at her; her bright blue eyes met his. “You’re my family.”

“What, the bastard children of despair?”

He shrugged. “Beats being an only child.”

She thought about it. John watched the expression in her eyes go from doubt to acceptance. Christine nodded, found a little smile. Then she nestled close to him again, her head tucked comfortably under his chin. He loved her softness, her warmth. The way they relaxed into each other. The easiness of just holding her, without any further expectations, from him or toward him. The sense that they belonged right there, together, just was they were.  

“That’s why you didn’t want to kiss me,” Christine finally said. “Because we’re … what, emotional siblings?”

“It took me a while to figure it out, but yeah.” He kissed her forehead again. “You knew, too.”

“I did?”

“The night you called me from the hospital, for sure. But probably before that.” He shrugged, smiled, diffident. “I fit your – inclination – and you never even noticed me.”

“Oh, I noticed you. Believe me, I noticed.” She patted his chest fondly, but in a distinctly sisterly way.

He raised one eyebrow.

“The guys I sleep with tend to … go away.” Christine shrugged. “I wanted to keep you around.”

“Then you got what you wanted. I’m not going anywhere.”

“This is going to take some getting used to.”

“I’ll try not to cramp your style,” John promised. “Too much.”

“Great. Like you weren’t overprotective enough before.”

“Just try to date nice guys, stay away from Squids and Jarheads, it’ll be fine.”

She growled softly.

Growling, Reese decided, was not the same as snapping, so he gave his newly-claimed big brother status a try. “You know, maybe if you changed your expectations a little, you could also change the outcome.”

Christine growled again, but she still didn’t snap.

“Maybe if you got to know these guys, instead of jumping right into bed with them, they’d still be around after three days.”

She grinned wryly. “And the ghost of Donnelly speaks again.”

“Really.”

“He said that maybe if I stopped shooting relationships on sight, some of them might actually survive.”

Grudgingly, Reese nodded. “I always knew he wasn’t stupid.”

“You really are a lot like him, you know.”

“I don’t see it.”

“Smart. Intensely goal-oriented. Absolutely invested in your own personal moral code. You’d much rather be wrong than uncertain. And you both held your wounds close and used them to make you strong.”  

John studied her. “Donnelly was wounded?”

She nodded. “Early and deep.”

He should have guessed that, John realized. He’d never given much thought to Donnelly’s character and motivations. He’d been too busy trying to stay out of his custody. But looking back, what she said made sense. They _were_ a lot alike, he and Donnelly. He could admit that, now that the agent was safely dead. They’d had the same basic goal: To protect people. They’d simply gone about it in very different ways. If John’s life had been different – very, very different – they might have been colleagues. It was a stretch to think they might have been friends, but John could have worked with him. Trusted him. And, “He would have been good for you.”

“I would have destroyed him.” A sad little smile quirked around Christine’s mouth. “Besides, he was a Jarhead.”

Reese grunted. “Everyone makes mistakes.”

They went quiet again for a time.

John tried to remember the last time he’d been this content. Before Christmas, he realized, sitting by his window with Leila sleeping in his arms. This was better. He didn’t have Christine back to her grandparents by nine. And she could drink beer with him.

He was going to have to call Zoe Morgan and tell her she’d been right.

Although – it could wait a week or so. And then he could just let the fixer think he didn’t want to talk about it. That would be better than an outright admission that he was wrong. A little more bearable.

Zoe had thought that Christine was Harold’s …

Reese groaned out loud. “Harold’s going to be heartbroken, you know. He had great hopes for us.” It didn’t seem wise to spell out exactly what those hopes had been.

“And he tried so hard to make them happen.”

“You knew?”

“He was very subtle, most of the time.”

“Mm-hmmm.” Reese considered. “I think you should tell him. I can’t bear to see him unhappy.”

“We should tell him together. So he knows that we still love him and that we’re not not dating him and that he

he doesn’t have to choose between us. It’s important.”

John chuckled, but nodded his agreement. “Tomorrow. We’ll take him for ice cream. He’ll like that.”

“Maybe shopping at the geek store after.”

_So much_ , Reese thought, _for those dozen brilliant blue-eyed children_. Although – as far as he knew, Harold was a capable of fathering brilliant blue-eyed children was he was. Probably more brilliant. And turn-about was fair play…

It had no chance of succeeding, of course, until and unless Finch was able to get over Grace Hendricks, and Christine was able to get over her past. But it was an interesting idea. He could at least watch for openings.

He sighed. One hardheaded introvert at a time. “You know,” he mused, “it’s supposed to be a nice weekend. Be a shame to waste it.”

“What’d you have in mind?”

“If we’re not going to spend it in bed, maybe we should spend it getting you packed up and moved to the new place.”

She looked up at him. Her bright blue eyes were troubled, frightened. But there was something else, too. Something that almost looked like hope. After a long minute, she said, very quietly, “Okay.”

He pressed another kiss to her forehead and drew her very close in his arms.

***

It was cold, and the misty drizzle that fell over the park threatened to turn to true icy rain at any moment. At his side, Bear shook the rain off his fur, then settled back on his haunches. Finch glanced down at him. Then he looked again at the town house on the other side of the park.

There was a faint light in the downstairs window. The lamp next to the wingback chair, Finch knew. They’d always left it on at night, he and Grace. He wasn’t even sure why; it was just a habit they had. A little light in the night.

There was a soft light upstairs as well, in the front bedroom.

Gregg Everett was still there. In the front bedroom, with Grace Hendricks, at three in the morning.

It was as it should be, Finch told himself. He had planned this, arranged it. He had put the photographer directly in the path of his former fiancée. He was a good man. Thoughtful, gentle, kind. Gifted. He would be good for Grace.

This was a good thing, he told himself. This was as it should be, he repeated.

Across the city, he was reasonably certain, John and Christine had finally acknowledged the feelings they had for each other. That was as it should be, too.

For the moment, all was right with the world, romantically speaking.

And he was standing alone in the dark and the cold soft rain, with a patient but bewildered dog for a companion.

It was, Finch admitted, bitter-sweet. But on the whole, the sweet far outweighed the bitter.

The light in the bedroom went out.

He closed his eyes for a moment. Tried to close out the hurt. This is as it should be. He sent a silent prayer to whatever deity might be listening, wishing them well. Wishing them joy, and love. He turned away from the townhouse before he opened his eyes.

His gaze traveled up, and he looked squarely at the surveillance camera mounted on the light pole at the edge of the park.

“Keep them safe,” he whispered.

The red light continued to flash regularly, evenly.

Finch nodded. He pulled the leash very lightly, and Bear stood up and moved at his side. They walked the back to the car. He opened the passenger door and Bear jumped in, sitting politely on the towel Harold had spread on the seat earlier. He rubbed the dog’s ears, shut the door, and went around to the driver’s side.

Behind the wheel, he hesitated. He was tired. He could go to one of his residences, try to get some sleep. That was the practical thing. The reasonable thing.

But he wouldn’t sleep. He would just be awake and alone.

Better to go back to the library. He needed to clean up from the Cutter investigation, tie up the loose ends. And there were books that needed to be re-shelved. He could rest on the couch for a time. Maybe find something dry to lull him to sleep. It was more likely to be restful than going to an empty house.

Harold was nearly always alone. It rarely bothered him. Tonight, however, his solitude had sharp edges. The library was better. The library would soothe him.

He wouldn’t be alone in a room full of good friends, however musty and quiet they were.

As he reached to turn the key in the ignition, his call phone rang.

Concerned, he answered carefully. “Hello?”

“Uncle Harold? I’m sorry, I know it’s the middle of the night …”

Finch relaxed. Will Ingram sounded agitated, but in an irritated way, not an imperiled way. “It’s alright, Will. I was just heading home from an event. What’s wrong?”

“That woman, Angelis? The reporter?”

“Yes?”

“She’s … wait a minute. Jules, can you …”

There was the sound of the phone being passed, of keys clicking. Then his own phone chirped. He moved it away from his ear and looked at the image.

The story was from the New York Journal. There was a picture, grainy and black and white. Finch immediately recognized the big half-circle window, the front of the building that housed Nathan Ingram’s loft. There was an ambulance to the right of the picture. In the center, paramedics carried a stretcher down the front steps. The head of the stretcher was up, and Christine’s face was clearly visible. So was Will’s, standing beside her. There were dark stains, obviously blood, on both of them.

The headline, in luridly large type, read: BLOODY BRAWL AT BILLIONAIRE’S LOFT?

Beneath that, a sub-caption continued: INGRAM HEIR IN FIGHT WITH MYSTERY WOMAN

The lede paragraph started with the words, “No police report has been filed in regards to an incident earlier this year which resulted in an unknown woman being hospitalized …”

Finch growled. Bear looked at him, concerned. He patted the dog’s ears again.

Will returned to the phone. “I just saw it. I was going to call Scotty …”

“I’ll call her,” Harold said quickly. “And Miss Morgan. Are you at home? Off the streets?”

“Yeah. We’re at the loft.”

“Good. Let your bodyguards know what’s happened. There’s likely to be an uptick in paparazzi traffic.”

“Yeah, Julie did that.”

“Then just keep your head down. We’ll handle this in the morning. It will blow over. Don’t worry.”

The young man sighed. “I just … this was weeks ago. I don’t know where they got this. I guess it caught me off guard.”

“You’re still a celebrity, Will. You’re interesting. Miss Morgan will help us through this. But don’t worry tonight. Try to get some sleep.”

There was a long pause. “Alright. I know you’re right. Thanks, Uncle Harold.”

“I’ll talk to Miss Morgan, and I’ll call you in the morning?”

“Alright. Thanks.”

Finch put his phone away thoughtfully. He needed to read the whole article. To contact Zoe Morgan and get ahead of this. To call Christine and John – in the morning, not now; it wasn’t that urgent, as long as they were off the streets. To find out where the photo had come from and how it had risen to the surface after so many weeks. He had a great many things to do …

He glanced once more across the park. The little light in the front window, the darkness above. Nothing had changed. But he had things to do. He nodded to himself. Many things to do.

His eyes traveled to the surveillance camera. The red light blinked steadily.

Harold chuckled, perversely pleased, and started the car.

 ***

The End

**Author's Note:**

> If someone you know exhibits warning signs of suicide: do not leave the person alone, remove any firearms, alcohol, drugs or sharp objects that could be used in a suicide attempt, and call the U.S. National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK (8255) or take the person to an emergency room or seek help from a medical or mental health professional.
> 
> Tech is largely made up, and any errors in probability are completely mine. 
> 
> “No man ever steps into the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man.” Heraclitus


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